Colour Profiling With Sublimation Inks

The use of special sublimation inks in inkjet printers expands the scope of photographic printing to encompass a wide range of substrates. Printed mugs. T-shirts and coasters are now very popular "photo-gifts". Since the printers used for this process were not designed for sublimation printing, the usual printing procedures, using the printer manufacturer's profiles can give very unpredictable results. Fortunately it is possible to generate custom printer profiles that can give accurate colour rendering when printing to a wide range of substrates.

The procedure for profiling a sublimation printing process is fundamentally no different from that used when profiling a normal paper printing process. What is different however is that there is an intermediate stage in the process. The printer targets are printed onto the sublimation paper, with "No Color Management" and are then transferred using the correct heat press to the final substrate. It is the final substrate that is measured, not the image on the transfer paper.

If you compare the colours printed on the transfer paper with those produced on the final substrate you will see that they can be very different. The heat transfer process modifies the colours of the dyes and the modification must be accounted for in the printer profile.

We have found that the colour rendering depends to some degree on the type of substrate being used. Hard substrates can give quite different colours from soft substrates. However, both hard and soft substrates can be profiled. We can measure targets on any type of flat substrate, including T-shirts, tea-towels, and table mats. In general, a profile created for one hard substrate will work for others, so a profile created from table mats will work for mugs too.

With a custom profile it is possible to get very good colour rendering on printed items. The example below was printed on polyester fabric using a custom profile. The resulting print has better colour rendering than many (unprofiled) printers printing directly to photo paper.

So, if you want to profile your sublimation printing process, follow the steps for profiling paper prints. In other words, print the test charts onto sublimation paper, with "No Color Management" in your software application and in the printer driver. Then transfer the two images to your substrate using your normal process. Send the finished prints to us, on the substrate of your choice, and we will measure it and generate your custom profile.

As always, if you have any queries about this process, e-mail or phone for more information.