About Direct-to-Card Printing

Direct-to-Card (DTC®) printing is the most common technology used by desktop card printer/encoders to transfer images directly onto a plastic ID card. DTC technology prints images by heating a print ribbon beneath a thermal printhead, resulting in the transfer of color from the ribbon to a blank card.

DTC card printing layers

Sharp edges, deep blacks and the full spectrum of colors
DTC technology uses two printing methods to achieve its incredible image quality:

Dye-sublimation prints smooth, continuous-tone images that look truly photographic. A dye-based ribbon is partitioned by multiple color panels, which are grouped in a repeating series of colors along the ribbon’s length.

A printhead containing hundreds of thermal elements heats the dyes, which vaporize and diffuse into the card surface. By combining colors and varying the heat used to transfer them, dye-sublimation is capable of producing up to 16.7 million colors.

Resin thermal transfer uses a single-color ribbon to print sharp black text and crisp bar codes, which can be read by both infrared and visible-light scanners. While this process uses the same thermal printhead as dye-sublimation, solid dots of color are transferred rather than a combination of colors.