www.images-magazine.com OCTOBER 2026 images 49 IS DECORATOR PROFILE The trade transfers buyer Bolt Uniforms has offered DTF “since day one”, says managing director Ayesha Rashid. The Manchester-based company, which is primarily known for its embroidery service, buys in its DTF transfers from DTF Now, Stahls’ and DTF Prints Online. Ayesha, who has a background in bespoke garment manufacture, says Bolt started offering DTF because for her, “DTF filled a very useful gap between traditional print methods and embroidery. It works across a wide variety of garments, allows us to reproduce detailed and colourful artwork, and makes short runs much more commercially viable. “It is particularly attractive for customers who want detailed logos, larger back prints or lightweight garments where embroidery either isn’t suitable or would add unnecessary weight.” DTF felt like a technology that was going to continue developing, she explains. “What stands out to me is how quickly the range of possibilities is expanding. We’re no longer talking only about standard full-colour transfers, you increasingly see different effects and finishes such as foil, glitter and more specialist transfer options.” She’s now looking at bringing a small DTF printing set-up into Bolt specifically forone-off and very short-run orders. “We would still use trade printers for volume, but having the ability to produce an urgent single transfer or samples in-house would make our operation much more flexible.” Software investment The biggest development she’d like to see is continued improvement in colour consistency and repeatability. “DTF is already extremely capable, but for commercial decorators the challenge isn’t producing one great print, it’s being able to reproduce that same result consistently across different production runs.” Because the company uses external trade printers, there is an additional variable between the artwork Bolt approves and the finished transfer the team receives, says Ayesha. “Occasionally the colour or overall transfer quality isn’t exactly where we want it to be. “We’ve invested in better hardware and software internally so we’re working from a much more controlled colour workflow. That allows us to assess customer vector artwork more accurately and get much closer to the intended colours before anything reaches production. “It doesn’t remove every variable, but it gives us considerably more control and means we’re managing colour rather than simply sending a file away and hoping the output matches.” Another area she’d like to see more development in is specialist transfers and finishes. “Foil, glitter and other effects make DTF much more interesting because decorators canoffer something beyond a standard printed logo without needing a completely separate production process. “Another area that interests me is smaller, more reliable DTF equipment aimed at short runs and one-off production. For a business like ours, we don’t necessarily need to replace high-volume trade printers; we’d benefit more from a compact system that allows us to turn around samples, replacements and very small orders quickly and consistently.” Her advice to others on making the most of DTF is to test print whenever possible, particularly when colour accuracy matters. “One of the biggest mistakes is assuming that what you see on a screen will automatically be reproduced exactly on the garment. Customers often supply artwork created or viewed in RGB, whereas the production process has its own colour limitations. A good quality, properly configured monitor makes a bigdifference. “I’d also recommend managing customer expectations around colour from the beginning. Explain that there canbedifferences between RGB colours displayed on a screen and the colours achievable in print. “For important brand colours, test first! I’d rather spend a little extra time validating a transfer than discover a colour issue after 100 garments have been pressed.” boltuniforms.co.uk DTF is an ideal choice for when embroidery might add too much weight, says Ayesha Bolt Uniforms is looking at bringing in a small DTF printing set-up customers see the full benefit. The solution is testing rather than assuming. “We now treat the production side much more like manufacturing than simply digital printing.” As for the future, Harry is clear where it is headed: “DTF has already solved the question of whether digital transfers can become a mainstream production method. The next stage is making the process cleaner, smarter, more automated and more consistent.” dtfprintsonline.co.uk tpupatches.co.uk
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