DTF Glossary
Choke (white underbase)
Choke shrinks the white underbase a small amount relative to the colour art, so the white layer hides just inside colour edges instead of peeking past them as a pale halo when press registration drifts. It is the opposite of spread, which grows the white outward.
In practice
White prints under colour on dark garments to block the fabric from showing through. If the white layer is even slightly larger than the colour above it — or the two drift during printing or pressing — a thin white outline appears around every edge. Choking the white in by a pixel or two removes that failure mode while keeping coverage.
Units matter: some tools take choke in pixels at the working resolution, others in millimetres. In NestSheet the choke is set in pixels — 0 to 10 px with a default of 2 px, which at 300 dpi is roughly 0.17 mm — and the white channel preview shows the result before anything is exported.