Best sublimation printer for photos

[GT500Grad]

I apologise if this has been asked before...

I currently have a Epson artisan 1430 and use it mainly to print photos that I then transfer to metal plates for car show dash plaques. If it's a cartoon style picture they look great but if it's an actual picture of a car or person, they tend to look grainy. I would love to expand my business but never felt my images were a high enough quality to do so. I have my settings as high as they go, but still feel it's not good enough.

I have been looking at newer printerd but they all seem to match the Epson ppi or are less. Any suggestions on printers or tricks would be great.

Also I have been looking at ones that have a feed tray bypass and can feed from a spool to help cut waste.

Thanks in advance.

[webtrekker]

What quality are the images you are printing (ie. the dpi)?

[GT500Grad]

You mean the quality of the original image? They are taken with our 21 mp DSLR and when I export them, I export the highest quality for jpg. I'm sorry I don't know what the actual dpi is.

[malkram]

in my opinion it's related to the quality/resolution of the photos you take. I don't print actual photos so couldn't tell you more.

[logobear]

the printer is decent spec, but looking at 8+ colours will increase the gamut.
I have seen fantastic results from the Sawgrass VJ628 and you get end to end colour management. not cheap thou....

[Customprintwales]

Do you have a printer profile for your sub inks.

Vectors tend to not be as prone to bad ink profiles as photos which have many more shades of colours and a wrong printer profile can male a big difference. Also make sure you are not using a printer profile from your graphics programme and a profile from your printer. Doubling up of profiles can make a mess.

I tend to turn off the profile under printer settings and just use the profile from my graphics programme.

[Justin]

I run this printer (Model is 1500W in the UK) and can honestly say it's difficult to beat the quality in sublimation for anywhere near the same price.

I run a VJ628 which is a superb workhorse but it's considerably more expensive.

The newer Sure Color printers seem to give excellent results but as mentioned above, to get better results you'll need to go up in number of colours.

You shouldn't be getting a grainy result on this printer. Do you have a custom made profile? Have you double checked all settings? If you're putting a very high res photo in you should be getting a cracking print out :-)

[InkExpress]

I run this printer (Model is 1500W in the UK) and can honestly say it's difficult to beat the quality in sublimation for anywhere near the same price.

I run a VJ628 which is a superb workhorse but it's considerably more expensive.

The newer Sure Color printers seem to give excellent results but as mentioned above, to get better results you'll need to go up in number of colours.

You shouldn't be getting a grainy result on this printer. Do you have a custom made profile? Have you double checked all settings? If you're putting a very high res photo in you should be getting a cracking print out :-)

As Justin said the 1500W (1430 in the US and CA) is a cracking high quality printer for dye sub work. I am yet to find a model better. In fact I have seen prints from Pro 3880 and 9880 (using 8 colours) that are still not as good.

A custom ICC is key, for a long time wee supplied 1500W without ICC and although the results were good with custom made ICC profile have made the whole package work so much better.

Ensure the printer is set to Paper Type: Epson Matte and Quality: Photo Quality as this gives the best results and applies more ink than the Plain Paper setting (also it reduces the print of banded prints and blocked print nozzles)

Alex

[JMugs]

Hi Alex
Was planning on doing a new ICC for my 1500w, can't for the life of me remember what paper setting I used last time, so you saved me some head scratching.

Cheers
Janners