Tips and Tricks for Dye Sublimation Printing

Dye sublimation printing is a printing process that involves the transfer of dye onto a substrate using heat and pressure. It is a popular method for printing high-quality images and graphics on a variety of materials, including fabric, ceramic, and plastic.

One of the main challenges of dye sublimation printing is colour matching. This refers to ensuring that the printed image's colours match the original design as closely as possible.

In this article, we will look at the process of calibrating your dye sublimation printer, some areas where you can get into trouble and a few techniques that I have used to maximize the final result.

First, let's discuss what the goals are. Obviously, we want to have an accurate colour match. We want our greys to be neutral and we want colours to be vibrant but not oversaturated. The road to getting there requires that each of the 7 steps shown are understood. Much of what we will discuss can be transferred to setting up any printing process.

Dye Sublimation Challenges:

Modelled Blotches Spots usually point to too much moisture in the paper. This is even more pronounced on hard non-porous material. One way to take away excess moisture is to add additional layers of Kraft paper. This way the excess moisture is absorbed. Your environment should not have a high amount of humidity.??

Blurred image, doubled image, gassing out. The ink is bleeding, or the paper is moving during the pressing causing a ghosting image. If you pull the paper off too soon or your transfer is done too quickly you can get rough edges.

Transfer lines can be alleviated by reducing the pressure. Over time you will learn how much pressure is required for various times and pressure. This is only determined by testing.

Black is turning brown, images look faded. One would think that a longer transfer time would yield a denser black. The reality is that dye sublimation chemistry will reach a point where too much heat and transfer time decreases the density of the ink. If you're getting brown blacks first decrees the time in 5-second increments. I always start with time and then try pressure.

Colour Management walk-through:

Every RIP software will walk you through similar steps when creating a new media setup. It’s beyond the scope of this article to discuss every step in detail but let's focus on the ones that have the biggest impact and the ones you have to make a subjective decision.

Step 1: Ensure your environment is not too humid. This can cause issues with dye-sub.

Step 2: Device calibration. This simply means you have checked the nozzles and alignment. If your printer has an internal calibration, then that needs to be done.?

Step 3: Choosing the optimal printer settings, print speed and dot pattern. My trick is to look at what the manufacturer has done in the past. Their colour may not be ideal for your printer but they usually know the optimal combination of printer settings to use.

Step 4: Primary ink Restrictions. This is one of the most important steps as it will determine the gamut of your printer. Most printers when unrestricted will print too much ink. Your goal is to find the most ink that gives you the highest chroma, not density but chroma. If you have a handled device that can show you LCH then you can use the C portion for Chroma. As you measure each swatch from light to dark, the chroma will increase. At a point, the chroma will stop increasing and may even decrease. You want to select the swatch where the highest chroma value. Your RIP may also display a graph where you can toggle from density to Chroma. Always use Chroma.

Step 5: Linearization. This step just needs to be measured and I accept the RIP settings here.

Step 6: Total Ink Limit. If you have done any profiling you know this is the most difficult one to figure out. Here are a few pointers. If you have over-inking at 200-300%, and that area is wet or bleeding, then you need to stop and go back to Step 4 and reduce the ink there. Ideally, you want the ink limit to be between 300 and 360. Getting to this stage may mean going back and forth between this step and step 4. When reducing in step 4, start with Yellow as it is the most watery of the inks, then Cyan, then Black and lastly Magenta. We never have enough magenta. I test the ink limit target by rubbing various areas to see if the ink is wet or damp and if it scuffs easily.

Step 7: Profiling. Here you want to measure at least 900 patches. More patches will give you more accurate spot-colour matching. I start with the middle GCR setting. Start your backs at 40.

In conclusion, colour management is an essential part of the printing process, as it helps to ensure that the colours of the printed image match the original design as closely as possible. By following these tips and using the right tools and equipment, you can improve the colour match and achieve excellent results with your printing projects.

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