What can be sublimated?
• White or lighter substrates – Sublimation inks are translucent in nature and therefore it shows best result in white substrates. Likewise, you can use grayish substrate for getting near natural results. But when you use other light colored substrates you can expect the best results when the images are with dark colors and complementary to the color of the substrate. But most of the time darker substrates cannot produce the results you expect.
• Soft substrates – For good results you should use synthetic fabrics like polyester, nylon satin, or rayon using sublimation printing process. Use the specific types of nylon or rayon that go well with the process. Your vendor will be able to suggest you the right one. You can use this process for printing on soft surfaces like can koozies, mouse pads, car flags, and colorful puzzles and cubes.
• Hard substrates – Sublimation process of printing can produce the best result in hard surfaces. The sublimation print can penetrate the coating and gets crosslinked with it to become permanent. As it goes in the layer of the coating you cannot even feel the print on the surface.

What cannot be sublimated?
• There are some hard substrates that are not polymer coated and hence you cannot use sublimation process of printing. But, you can get some hard surfaces that are coated with polymers and therefore can accept sublimation prints. You must remember that because of the inherent nature of the printing process lighter color bases produce best result but dark substrates may not produce the colors truly.
• Again, you cannot use cotton substrates for sublimation. Though you can use a substrate with 50/50 mix of cotton and polyester, the color will look dull and faded. For these types of substrates it would be wise to use heat transfer paper.

Which items are commonly sublimated?
There are plenty of items that can be sublimated and newer products are being added to the list every day. Some of the most common products that can be sublimated are – aprons, tiles, dog tags, license plates, bag tags, ceramic mugs, door hangers, light switch covers, boxer shorts, clipboards, hardboard tiles, mini tees, tote bags, softlink t-shirts, plaques, pet shirts, neckties, travel mugs, ornaments, pet tags, puzzles, lab coats, dash plates, business card holders, name badges, jewelry, coaster, bookmarks, mouse pads, jackets, clocks and car flags.

What do you need for sublimation?

Here is the list of sublimation supplies you’ll need.

• A computer with a good amount of RAM and hard drive storage space.
• A monitor that is able to display colors properly.
• Sublimation ink – ArTainium UV+ ink is perfect for Epson printers.
• ICC Profiles – This is an accurate method for color management that instructs the inks how to mix colors to produce the right color.
• Sublimation paper.
• Printer – Epson.
• Bulk ink.
• Heat press.
• Specialty tools for easy printing, photo enlargement and photo editing.

Now you are ready to use ArTainium sublimation ink for sublimation printing.

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.