Ink Jet Transfer Paper for Darks & HTV Carrier Sheets
Ink Jet Transfers are nice to use because it allows you to put designs on dark colored shirts. You'll need specific "paper for darks" when doing this. Here are some links for paper:
- 3G Jet Opaque, Blue Grid, Blue Line, or Jet Opaque II. I recommend Blue Line which you can find here on Ebay from World Paper. 3G Jet Opaque is the most popular brand used however.
When using paper for darks the back of the transfer paper is WHITE. This allows your design to remain vibrant because if it were see- through like the paper for lights, the color of the shirt would show through your design. So you must cut off all of the white around the design. If you don't, you will see the white where you didn't cut around the design on your shirt.
No it's not necessary, but you will want to cut around your entire design completely regardless. If you don't, the transfer paper will be visible on your short (it's white) where you didn't cut.
If you don't have one of these machines or don't want to use it, you can use a circle or square background behind a design that would be easy for you to cut by hand.
However, if you don't want to use a background behind designs, you can use the "print and cut option" these machines offer. This will allow the machine to cut your design out perfectly after printing them.
What can I use to transfer designs that have a lot of pieces if I don't use a background?
- You can use leftover HTV carrier pieces you may already have.
- Order HTV transfer sheets from Amazon. Here's one example.
- Order from Coastal. Here's a tutorial that might help!