Ready to start mug smashing!

[avfcvillan]

Well after my debacle of trying to get an ICC for my Epson SX215 I tried using the D120 profile for PS CS3Ext.

This didn't start off too bad and I run a couple of mugs off and they looked "ok"

Well this is where I am now...15 mugs later not a happy mug presser. All the colours are coming out too dark, a little blurry and very slight bleeding.

I bought a package from Lovecut ( how I wish I hadn't!) and I've decided that the materials sent were of a sub standard nature.

So, I put my hand back into my pocket and ordered some mugs and paper from BMS.

This is becoming an expensive sideline...arrrggghh! But one must "Percy Severe".

Any advice before I ruin another batch of mugs would be greatly appreaciated.

Regards

Neil (a slightly frustrated novice dye subber)

[bms]

Let me start of by saying this isn't the reply you are going to be hoping for...

I have made posts on here in the past about buying unsupported printers for dye sublimation printing. I realise that there are members on here that have success using certain none supported printers with different profiles or custom made profiles, but for someone starting out they really should look at getting supported printers with back up from authorised distributors. This isn't a punt for business so don't take this the wrong way, but it makes me cross (because this has a financial impact on you now) when some companies supply 'sublimation printers' that can cause problems like you are experiencing.

First question - what ink are you using? If it has come from Lovecut then they are not selling Sawgrass inks and are not authorised to sell sublimation ink. If it is a Sawgrass brand (Artainium or Rotech) then you might be half way there but there are no ICC profiles for Sawgrass ink with the SX215 (as it isn't a supported printer). So you are now into trial and error with tweaking colour balances, trying different profiles to get something acceptable. You should use blank parts of mugs you've already printed on to save on further wastage, but I fear you are going to have some. Other members on here may be able to help with specific advice for the 'tweaks' and these may help with colour correctness.

As for the blurry and bleeding issue - do you have a perfect nozzle check pattern? There is no point going to print anything unless this is absolutely perfect. Blurry images might be down to pressure on the mug press. The press needs to be tight around the mug and don't print right up close to the handles. Try images that fit in the main white area of the mug first before going to full top to bottom printing to build up your experience.

I really hope you are able to get this working, but my advice to anyone reading this for the first time, starting out, is to read about supported printers. The current range are the Ricoh GXe3300 (A4), Epson B1100 (A4/A3/A3+), Epson Photo 1400 (A4/A3/A3+), Ricoh GX7000 (A4/A3). The Ricoh range come with PowerDriver to make printing simple, the Epson's use ICC profiles with Artainium inks.

Sorry this might not be what you wanted to hear...

[John G]

No disrespect to AVFC but a load of people get out of bed one day and say "right, i'm going to print and sell mugs for a profit". They go down the cheapest possible route, without doing any homework at all, and then get stuck with a load of crap equipment that is just about unusable.

If you feel you're capable of setting up a cheapy CISS with an unsupported printer using cheap ink and sorting out your own profiles, then go ahead, but if you want to start printing with little hassle and plenty of backup buy a ricoh and get good results from day one.

[Squadron Prints]

We went through the same - the best thing we ever did was to bin the lot (printer, paper etc) and start again with a complete package from BMS - thankfully my other half is a photoshop guru which helps but we are going great guns now using our own artwork apart from photo images which are still causing some problems! I was close to binning it all together but all the people on here were a great help!
http://i287.photobucket.com/albums/ll134/Gillibelle/Products/WallofMugs2.jpg

[avfcvillan]

The ink I bought is visi sub. I think I will delvedeeper and buy a printer that is supported.

[logobear]

Blurred images are often down to over cooking the mug.
There is an optimum time, and beyond that the inks bleed beyond the desired area.
The mug needs to get upto 190c for about 40 seconds. Try reducing time a bit, if you go too short image will be weak, but probably still sharper!

[Matt Quinn]

Martin is right...

I use a 415 - very similar printer - with no real problems. BUT...

I've many years of experience with Epson printers; and quite a high level of technical knowledge with regard to colour theory, I.T., photography etc... I also have exceptionally good colour accuity developed over 30-odd years working with electronic imaging.

For me, the 415 worked right out the box with only a few 'tweaks'; but that really wasn't a 'turnkey' situation. Again, experience and knowledge of gicleé work is what minimised the amount of wasted stock - and note I use the word 'minimised' there; NOT eliminated.

The 415 (and, I guess) the 215 DO work well as sub-printers! - IF you know what you're doing with them. But, one way or another that knowledge won't come cheap. Not in terms of time or money.

Really the suppliers of these machines SHOULD at least be selling them with

a) A known inkset and
b) A custom profile...

They're not doing that. Which codemns the buyer to either disappointment and confusion or having to invest more money in profiling equipment and/or colour management knowledge.

The 'party line' in terms of printers and inksets is not an inexpensive route. And i believe that 'evangelising' one direction over another ultimately leaves the evangelist stuck in a 'knowledge vacuum'. It's not (in my opinion) that the sawgrass inks are better or one printer is superior to another - Simply that the heavy investment in trial, error, knowledge and experience has already been made. And many variables from an already complex process eliminated for you.

-That's what makes these 'standard' set-ups a cost-effective entry point.

For the more experienced, fiddling about with colour profiles and cheaper inksets may well be a more cost-effective option. However ultimately the knowledge and experience so gained , though a positive thing has a high price... Time, wasted blanks, perhaps more hardware...

You get nothing for nothing in this world...

Ideally you would have a custom profile not only for each printer and each inkset, but each substrate (i.e. type of blank) too! - That's perhaps a bit of overkill. But right now what you probably need is to invest in a custom profile for the set up you have.

-And you might have to do the same again when your ink runs out and you're forced to use a different inkset. I believe Martin has covered the issues with actual pressing technique; yet another set of variables to come to grips with.

[bms]

The ink I bought is visi sub. I think I will delvedeeper and buy a printer that is supported.

Okay that's positive as VisiSub is Artainium. If you have the inks then my advice would be to buy the B1100 printer from Amazon and a set of refillable cartridges (or a bulk feed system) from a reputable seller on Ebay. You can download the profiles for the B100 direct from Sawgrass. Whilst the B1100 might be more that you need at the moment there isn't a A4 Epson printer that is currently supported.

The B1100 and an empty bulk feed system/ refillable cartridges should see change from £200 and you will be able to use all your inks.

[avfcvillan]

Ok decision made new printer it is and possibly a new mug press...if I'm going to do this I'm going to do it right.

Thanks for the advice so far.

Also Martin I am fully open to any advice whether or not I like it. So again thank you it gave me the kick that I needed and a very important (and expensive) lesson has been learnt.

[purpledragon]

Buy cheap buy twice its a hard lesson that i bet everyone who's given advice on here is guilty of . Lesson learnt deep breath carry on and before long you'll be reading a similar post from someone else saying to your self i been there done that and printed the t shirt (after sortin icc profiles)

[smitch6]

i too bought the lovecut complete package when i 1st started and then found this forum :D
my printer went on flebay the ink went in the bin and the mugs were rubbish, and the paper still sits here (anyone want any lovecut paper?)
i bought a second hand B1100 off flebay best thing i ever did Paul helped me with profile etc and the colours are spot on now :)

i got some ink from a good supplier and decent paper etc off BMS with mugs etc and have got mugs from another supplier as well as i prefer the smaller ones, and i will say as everyone says with this new saying of the week, buy cheap buy twice (or something)
my press i got off them is brill so far not had a problem and i know lots on here us them and they've usually been ok and others have had loads of problems with them also.

i did a test a few weeks back and used the lovecut paper by mistake, same print same ink printer mug etc
textprint from BMS on 1 mug and lovecuts on another and wow what a difference just the paper makes.

so yes my advice (even though i'm still a baby at subbie's) is get the best set-up money will allow even if it's just a part set-up and then add to it as you go along

pick a supplier your happy with and stay with them that way once you spend the time getting setting times etc sorted you know it should always work, well hopefully anyway, i'm still changing settings as i go along in trial and error (lots of bits of paper with numbers all over them lol)

good luck and you'll be really happy when everything is going great :)

[avfcvillan]

I really value all the comments on here and tbh it's the harshest ones that have made me realise my mistakes.

Well to let you know where I am at the moment..... The new mugs and paper have been delivered this morning... Thank you BMS what a fantastic service.

My empty cartridges have also turned up today (from ebay but what appears to be from a decent seller, time will tell)

Just got to wait for my Epson B1100 to come but I am looking at around the 7th July for this. Bought from Amazon new for £150 but I did have to compromise on dispatch / delivery time to get this price.

Have contacted Sawgrass re Lovecut not being on their resellers list (so I can get the ICC profile). They have been very helpful and sorted me out with that.

So all in all when I finally get my printer I will run a few mugs and post them on here for your thoughts (if you don't mind).

In the mean time I will be redesigning my wife's jewellery website (what great fun!!!! not!)

Neil

[Stitch Up]

In the mean time I will be redesigning my wife's jewellery website (what great fun!!!! not!)

Neil
What site is that Neil? Always interested in the skills of other members - you never know, your wife might even get some business if you let us have the www :)

[avfcvillan]

Update,

Ok Amazon did a good job and delivered the printer a couple of days ago:smile:

So I got to work and printed off a sample.

I was happy with the colours as they were damn close to the original photos.

however the text and the quality of the print was not so good, it looked very "1980's dot matrix" if you get my drift

just to clarify what setup I'm using......Artanium (Visi-sub) ink in cartridges. PS3 with ICC profile from Sawgrass. BMS mugs and Trupix paper.

Epson B1100 printer and the original press from love cut.

Presiing with medium to heavy pressure at 180 deg for 180 secs.

I am preheating the mug without transfer on and then putting it into the press for the full 180 @ 180.

I have included a couple of "mug shots"

Your thoughts are welcome

Neil

[bms]

Are you printing on the whiter side of the paper? Images look over blue to me.What graphics software are you using and have you double checked all settings for printer and profile settings?Are you getting a perfect nozzle check pattern?

[avfcvillan]

Yep definitely printing on the whiter side, I'm using the ICC profile from Sawgrass. It maybe the actual page setup that I have wrong i selected plain but after reading a few threads on here should I select matte and best photo? Next time I print if I haven't had any pointers I will screenshot my settings

[Paul]

best matt for trupix and photo. not best photo.
also you can download other icc for artanium inks here (https://rapidshare.com/files/343373433/artanium_B1100.icc) you can try that.

[bms]

I'm wonder if you have followed all the set up instructions? The reason fir this is that the printer set up instruction specify settings should be for photo not best photo;http://sawgrasseurope.indigofiles.com/technical_support/artainium/driver_configs/EPSON_B1100_Driver_Configuration.pdfIs you nozzle pattern perfect?

[Squadron Prints]

The photo has also to be really good - at least 300 pixels per inch - a small poor quality photo will not work

[Paul]

The photo has also to be really good - at least 300 pixels per inch - a small poor quality photo will not work
this is actualy not true ;)
I can print 72dpi with fantastic results. 300dpi is great when you printing wallpaper :P

[Squadron Prints]

OK but being photographers there is a difference between quality of PPI and dpi - I won't argue!

[Matt Quinn]

OK but being photographers there is a difference between quality of PPI and dpi - I won't argue!

...I'm glad you said that. :biggrin: My tongue's sore biting it... :biggrin:

[AdamB]

Ah, the old 'DPI' and 'PPI' ............... for those interested, please see the info below (sourced so I wouldn't have to type it all):

DPI and PPI Explained


There seems to be a great deal of confusion among many people regarding the use of some terms in digital imaging. One of the more common sources of confusion is the difference between DPI and PPI. The main problem with this is that DPI (dots per inch) is an old term that has been applied to everything relating to resolution and the size of a digital image. This is very confusing because different situations work with resolution in very different ways, and having a single term for all of them just makes things more confusing. More recently, the term PPI (pixels per inch) has appeared in common usage and is far more specific for what the term entails. DPI is still used in some documents and software when PPI is really what they mean, but this is changing. This article is an attempt to explain what the 2 terms mean and how they should be used.

PPI

Let’s start with PPI, it’s easy to understand. This is the number of pixels per inch in your image. This will affect the print size of your photo and will affect the quality of the output. The way that it will affect the quality of the output is that if there are too few pixels per inch, then the pixels will be very large and you will get a very pixelated image (jagged edges, you will actually see individual pixels, not good). You’ll hear various different numbers thrown around as to what an acceptable PPI for a print-out is. A lot of this will depend on the size of the print. This is because you look at large prints from a further distance than a small print, so you can get away with a lower PPI and still have the image look fine.

All that PPI does is affect the print size of the image. There are 2 ways that you can change the print size, by resampling or by not resampling. Not resampling is what you normally want to do, this will only change the size of the print. Using resampling will actually change the number of pixels (and thus the file size) in order to match the print size. So for instance, if you don’t resample, changing the PPI setting will increase or decrease the print size (it will increase if you drop the PPI, it will decrease if you increase the PPI). With resampling, if you change the PPI, you will loose pixels (if you set the PPI to a lower value) or you will have pixels created (if you increase the PPI). Creating pixels is a bad idea, they get generated by the computer and the results aren’t usually that good. Throwing away pixels is fine as long as you won’t need the bigger size later (that’s why it’s usually a good idea to save the original large file).

An Example

Suppose you have a 100 x 100 pixel image, it could be printed at many different sizes. If you set the image to print at 10 PPI, then you’d have a 10″ x 10″ image. If you set the image to print at 100 PPI, you’d have a 1″ x 1″ image. Note that adjusting this value doesn’t effect the number of pixels in the image at all, it just changes how big the print will be.

Take our 100 x 100 pixel image again. Suppose it’s set at 100 PPI (producing the same 1″ x 1″ printed image). With re-sampling off, when you adjust the PPI the dimensions adjust as well, this is how things worked in the example above. With re-sampling on, the dimensions won’t change. So, if you changed the PPI to 10 with re-sampling on, you would still keep a 1″ x 1″ image and the computer would throw out pixels to make the image stay that size. So in this case, you’d end up with a 10 x 10 pixel image in the end. If you went the other way, and changed the PPI to 300, then the computer would generate pixels to make a 300 x 300 pixel image that’s still 1″ x 1″ when printed.

Usually, the only reason you want to use re-sampling is for reducing the size of your image. For example, my scanner produces 3888 x 2592 images. These images are too big to use online (both for display and because of file size). By using re-sampling, I can adjust the size of the images to something more appropriate for online use.

DPI

Now let’s talk about DPI. DPI only refers to the printer. Every pixel output is made up of different coloured inks (usually 4-6 colours, although many printers use more now). Because of the small number of colours, the printer needs to be able to mix these inks to make up all the colours of the image. So each pixel of the image is created by a series of tiny dots (you could think of them as sub-pixels). Generally, the higher the DPI, the better the tonality of the image, colours should look better and blends between colours should be smoother. You’ll also use more ink and the print job will be slower. You might want to try setting your printer to a lower DPI to save ink and speed up the job, see if you notice any difference in quality. The lowest setting where you don’t see any loss in quality should be the best one to use.

So a 1200 dpi printer uses 1200 dots of ink in every inch to make up the colours. If you were printing a 300 PPI image, then every pixel would be made up of 16 smaller ink dots (1200 DPI x 1200 DPI / 300 PPI x 300 PPI). A lower DPI would have fewer ink dots making up each pixel, which would make the colour look worse. A higher DPI would have more ink dots for each pixel and should give more accurate colour (especially under close examination).

[avfcvillan]

Right guys, firstly..............................THANK YOU!

Martin, school boy error on my part! I had downloaded the Sawgrass profile and not realised there was setup documentation. Followed all there info and used Pauls test template (top job by the way) and with fingers crossed I pressed a mug.

Spot on, everything is now as it should be. If any newbies are reading this post then please learn from my mistakes.......

DO NOT BUY CHEAP!

Buy from a reputable supplier.

Buy supported products and consumables.

And one thing I didn't make a mistake in, was that I LISTENED to the advice that I was given by very knowledgable ppl on this forum.

Again, THANK YOU!

Well I won't be cutting and running I plan to stay around and participate as much as I can(if you'll have me....lol)

Neil (no longer mug smashing!)

[Paul]

lol! good to know everything is fine now ;) :tongue:

[John G]

Glad you got it sorted Neil, there'll be no stopping you now!