Sublimation Ink & Printers » dye ink http://www.sublimationinkprinters.com Just another WordPress weblog Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:26:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Pigment Ink, Dye Ink, Sublimation Ink & More: Types of Ink For Professional Printing http://www.sublimationinkprinters.com/2009/09/pigment-ink-dye-ink-sublimation-ink-more-types-of-ink-for-professional-printing.html http://www.sublimationinkprinters.com/2009/09/pigment-ink-dye-ink-sublimation-ink-more-types-of-ink-for-professional-printing.html#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:34:42 +0000 Sublimation Ink & Printer http://sublimationinkprinters.com/?p=14 For professional printing, all types of ink are used, be it pigment ink, dye-based ink or sublimation ink.

Pigment inks Pigment inks are mostly used for normal document printing. All the traditional printers use pigment inks for printing on paper. These inks are contain mixed chemicals to ensure that the pigments adhere to the surface of the [...]]]> For professional printing, all types of ink are used, be it pigment ink, dye-based ink or sublimation ink.

Pigment inks
Pigment inks are mostly used for normal document printing. All the traditional printers use pigment inks for printing on paper. These inks are contain mixed chemicals to ensure that the pigments adhere to the surface of the paper and cannot be removed be mechanical abrasion. Chemicals like resins are used in solvent based inks and other chemicals like binding agents are used in water based inks. The advantage of pigment inks is that you need less quantity of these inks for printing as they stay on the surface of the paper. Pigment inks are more resistant to washing and are recommended for use where erasure is unwanted. Among pigment inks, gel inks are the most resistant to washes.

Dye-based inks
Dye inks are stronger than pigment inks and can produce more intense colors on a given surface of paper of the same size. However, they soak into the paper and may sometimes bleed and destroy the quality of the image. To ensure that this does not happen, various quick drying solvents are mixed with dye based inks. Some measures are also taken during the printing process, including blowing hot air over a fresh print or harder paper sizing and using specialized paper coating. Another important technique is to use charged coating on the paper. If the dye is oppositely charged, then it is attracted to the paper coating and is retained. The solvent sinks into the printer paper. Cellulose is most commonly used to retain the dye. An advantage of dye inks is that the dye molecules in these inks interact chemically with the other ingredients in the inks and perform better than pigment inks in interacting with brighteners and other color enhancing agents to increase the intensity of the color and also to enhance the appearance of the dyes.

Sublimation ink
Sublimation ink is used to create short run and highly customized images. Breakthrough in sublimation printing technology has ensured that sublimation inks are an economical and practical way to print on a variety of objects. Sublimation uses sublimation ink and sublimation paper in sublimation printers to print sublimation transfers. When the sublimation transfer is put into a heat press along with a substrate at 400 F, the ink turns into gas (like dry ice) to form a permanent bond on the substrate. The substrate is a polymer coated item or synthetic fabric. The resulting print is a premium full color, photographic quality image that does not crack, peel or wash away. Sublimation inks work best with white substrates. Ash gray substrates also work well. For other light colored substrates, if the print colors are dark and complementary, then sublimation can be done well. Synthetic fabrics like polyester, satin, nylon and rayon are good substrates for sublimation. There are many items that can be used for sublimation, namely, aprons, tiles, dog tags, license plates, bag tags, ceramic mugs, door hangers, light switch covers, boxer shorts etc.

]]> http://www.sublimationinkprinters.com/2009/09/pigment-ink-dye-ink-sublimation-ink-more-types-of-ink-for-professional-printing.html/feed 6 Ink vs. Dye – Advantages of Using Dye Ink http://www.sublimationinkprinters.com/2009/09/ink-vs-dye-advantages-of-using-dye-ink.html http://www.sublimationinkprinters.com/2009/09/ink-vs-dye-advantages-of-using-dye-ink.html#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:21:07 +0000 Sublimation Ink & Printer http://sublimationinkprinters.com/?p=6 When we talk of inks, the ones that come to mind are pigment-based inks and dye-based inks. Once upon a time, pigment-based inks were the only ones that were in use for the purpose of printing. In the modern age, dye-based inks are finding huge popularity among people who print photographs and images. Pigment based [...]]]> When we talk of inks, the ones that come to mind are pigment-based inks and dye-based inks. Once upon a time, pigment-based inks were the only ones that were in use for the purpose of printing. In the modern age, dye-based inks are finding huge popularity among people who print photographs and images. Pigment based inks are still popular inks in traditional printers that are used to print documents.

Pigment-based inks are those inks that contain some mixed chemicals to ensure that the pigments adhere to the surface of the paper and cannot be removed be mechanical abrasion. These chemicals are generally called resins or binding agents. Resins are used in solvent-based inks and binding agents are used in water-based inks. The advantage of pigment-based inks is that lesser quantity of these inks is required for printing because these inks stay on the surface of the paper. The intensity of the color is the same as dye-based inks. Pigment-based inks are more resistant to washes and are recommended for use where erasure is not wanted. Among pigment-based inks, gel inks are the most resistant to washes. They produce the most colorfast prints. To prepare pigment-based inks, size of the pigment is an important element to be able to diffuse smoothly into the ink solution. Pigment quality also affects the lightness, brightness, saturation and hue, four important print quality characteristics of the ink.

Dye-based inks are stronger than pigment-based inks and can produce more intense colors on a given surface of paper. However, they tend to soak into the paper. As a result, they may sometimes bleed and destroy the quality of the image. To ensure that this problem of show through does not happen, various quick drying solvents are mixed with the dye-based inks. In this case the ink dries quickly forming a film on the surface before the solvent van permeate the substrate. Some measures are also taken during the printing process, including blowing hot air over a fresh print or harder paper sizing (use of fillers) and using specialized paper coating. Another important technique is to use charged coating on the paper. If the dye is oppositely charged, then it is attracted to the paper coating and is retained. The solvent sinks into the paper. Cellulose is most commonly used to retain the dye.

A big advantage of dye-based inks is that the dye molecules in these inks interact chemically with the other ingredients in the inks. As a result, they perform better than pigment-based inks in interacting with brighteners and other color enhancing agents to increase the intensity of the color and also to enhance the appearance of the dyes.

When dye-based inks react with cellulose coating on the printing papers, they manage to color the paper permanently. Dye-based inks and cellulose form images that are not affected by common solvents like water, alcohol and others. An important application of this combination is used in check washing to prevent frauds that involve the removal of signatures. Many of the modern printers now use dye-based inks to print images that become permanent and offer glossy and better than lab quality prints.

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