Epson has moved into direct-to-garment T-shirt printing with its latest printer, the SureColor SC-F2000. Promising to deliver high performance with low maintenance and cost efficiency, the SC-F2000 is billed by the company as suitable for online retail vendors, production printers and corporate users.

Users will be able to customise the system to suit the job with either two sets of CMYK crack resistant ink for white garments, or CMYK plus four white channels for printing onto coloured garments. The new release also comes with Epson's Garment Creator software, which includes a cost calculation function for each print job.

"Unique to this industry, this is the first system where a print-head, ink and chassis have been designed and manufactured by a single brand," claims Epson UK market development manager Martin Johns. "The hardware and ink are designed to work together. Users benefit from the reliability and high-quality output that Epson is renowned for."

The SC-F2000 boasts a resolution of 1,440 x 1,440dpi and a printing time of 27 seconds for white garments and 111 seconds for coloured T-shirts. The printer will be commercially available from November 2013.