Frequently Asked Questions
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What is Dye Sublimation Ink?
Sublimation ink a special type of ink, that under heat and pressure, transforms from the solid state on paper to a gaseous state immediately and bonds with any polymers that are present in the final product to give a permanent image. The final products, called substrates, must have a high percentage of polyester to them otherwise the sublimation cannot bond permanently.
Sublimation printing can be used to print onto all sorts of products from Mugs (the image appears to be inside the glaze of the mug and is impossible to feel), to T-shirts (the image bonds with the polyester content of the T-shirt and can be washed, ironed, stretched), mouse
mats, jigsaw puzzles etc. etc. The list of products is large and we supply an extensive range of these online at www.printerowners.co.uk -
What type of printer do I need for Sublimation printing?
An Epson or the new Ricoh printers are required and we can offer advice as to which printer may suit your needs best.
We support a large range of Epson printers and the current models that are available with sublimation inks are the A3 Epson B1100 and the A3 Epson Photo 1400. The Ricoh printers supported are currently the A4 GXe3300 and the A3 GXe77000. The Epson B42W will also be supported during 2011.
Epson Photo 1400 which is an A3 printer using 6 colours (black, cyan, magenta, yellow, light cyan and light magenta).
Epson B1100 which is an A3 printer using 4 colours (black, cyan, magent and yellow)
Ricoh GX7700 which is an A3 printer using SubliJet-R sublimation cartridges (black, cyan, magenta and yellow).
Ricoh GXe3300 which is an A4 printer using SubliJet-R sublimation cartridges (black, cyan, magenta and yellow).
There are larger Epson printers as well, for example the Epson 4880 but if you are interested in printing larger than A3 please do contact us for advice.
Whilst many other printers will print with sublimation inks, you need proper colour management profiles to ensure everything prints correctly. Only the above printers are supported through Sawgrass for sublimation printing. -
What is a colour correction profile?
As the sublimation ink colours are slightly different to the ink that the Epson printer would normally use then the way in which the printer interprets the screen image to print it out needs some adjustment. We can supply a small file which will configure the printer to print a closer match of colours using sublimation ink and this is free of charge when we supply the sublimation ink. Please note that colour profiling software is different depending on the type of sublimation ink you use and the profiles we supply are configured for the Sawgrass
(Artainium) sublimation ink that we supply.
When using the Ricoh printers, we are able to supply PowerDriver software which enables you to print from any graphics packages without the need for ICC profiling (but Mac users will still have to use ICC profiles as PowerDriver is not supported in the Mac environment). Please see the specific Ricoh printers for more information on our website. -
How does the printing work?
The whole sublimation process starts by you printing whatever you want onto paper. We recommend dye sublimation paper as this is designed to work best with the ink and withstand the high temperature, but we know of people that use a good quality laser paper which works.
We offer more advice on papers below.
The profile that we supply prints the picture in reverse format so that when you transfer it to the final item it comes out the correct way around. When you first print the picture you may feel that the colours are not very vibrant, but this is perfectly normal as the richness of colour comes through when the image is transferred to the item you are transferring it to.
Once you have the image, you place it face down on the sublimation printable, e.g. mouse mat, jigsaw etc. (or wrapped around a mug) and place it in the heat press. The pressure of the heat press and the temperature transfers the image from the paper to the final item and this transfer is permanent.
We recommend the use of a small amount of heat tape to hold the paper in place either on the flat item or around the mug you are printing onto. We provide all the temperature settings and dwell times for all the substrates that you can print onto. Just click of the temps and times link on our main page. -
What paper do I need?
We offer three types of paper.
The best all round paper is the TruPix brand which we supply in A4, A3 (UK A3 and US A3) and A3+. This paper produces excellent results on a range of substrates both hard and textile.
We also have an economy brand which we recommend for great value for money on hard surfaces only.
TruPix Papers are available on the roll as well as in sheet format for the larger printers. -
What do I need to get started in the sublimation printing business?
You will need an Epson or a Ricoh printer, a set of sublimation filled cartridges (or a bulk feed system if you are likely to be printing a lot), some dye sublimation paper, a roll of heat tape and either a flat bed press and/or a mug press. A flat bed press is used for printing flat items such as mouse mats, jigsaws, key rings, coasters etc. and they come in various sizes from 300mm x 380mm to our large press 400mm x 600mm. A mug press, as the name suggests is just for mugs and is designed to wrap around the mug - this will also do our water bottles.
Full details of our presses are available online. If you are looking for a complete business package with everything included then check out our business startup packages.
Please note that the ink cartridges supplied by Epson do not contain sublimation ink. Sublimation ink is a specialist ink and therefore is not available from Epson. -
Where can I get information, videos and help about getting started in sublimation?
There are a large number of free resouces on the Internet, from forums to videos on YouTube. Another great source is the link below from Sawgrass (copy and paste the link)...
http://howtosublimate.com/