Epson ET-2711 blues and greens wrong

[GazzaBJ]

Hi,
My first post and I'm new to sublimation.

I am having trouble getting my Epson printer to print blues and greens correctly. I have an ICC profile from the company that make the paper I use, but that just doesn't work, neither does using the default profile, in fact I don't think it makes any difference. I use Gimp to make my images.

As an example I have a colour wheel image from my Monitor and one after its printed. Even after sublimating the colours do not change.

Any help with this would be much appreciated, images to follow.

Thanks

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[webtrekker]

Hi.

First off, forget about anything shown on your monitor unless your monitor is colour-calibrated.

Are you sure you have installed the ICC profile correctly in Gimp, and have you made sure that Gimp manages colours and that colour handling is disabled in your printer?

Also, you say your PAPER supplier has given you an ICC profile. This should be supplied by your INK supplier.

What inks and paper brands are you using?

[GazzaBJ]

Thanks for the reply...

Yes, everything is set in Gimp as you mentioned. I have just managed to sublimate a colour wheel to a mug and that has actually come out in perfect colour, so I think I have sorted that out.

However, anything I sublimate to a fabric type material, ie t-shirt or mouse mat, is coming out dull and off colour.

I am using an ICC from the ink manufacturers, Sublinova as they make the paper as well.

So, I just need to work out why fabric sublimation is coming out so dull and in completely the wrong shades of blue and green. Black is also dull.

[Justin]

What make and mix of t shirts are you printing onto?

[GazzaBJ]

What make and mix of t shirts are you printing onto?

Fruit of the Loom premium in white at the moment.

[Justin]

Are these sublimation shirts? They need to be a high level mix of polyester, ideally 100% for the best results. I'm guessing these possibly aren't the right shirts hence the result.

[GermanDyeSub]

[MENTION=1]Justin[/MENTION] is making a good point.

The garment should be 100% polyester for best results with vivid prints. The more cotton mixture, the more dull it will look.

[InkExperts]

As Justin said ensure the t-shirts are sublimation 'ready' and are polyester based. Temp and time may also be a factor, refer to the supplier for this as they can differ from supplier to supplier. Generally 200c for 50 seconds should work well.

Sublimating on fabric may require a HR (high release) sublimation paper, we actually provide 3 papers for various substrates as they all take on the ink in different ways. Fabrics tend to absorb more ink than say ceramic and so we provide different papers to suit the different substrate surfaces.

In an effort to further improve our printer packages we have recently we have also started to produce various ICC profiles for the printer packages we sell, not only do we make the ICC to match the ink and printer we also make them specific for each paper and substrate (product) as the paper will vary the ink release and the substrate will vary the final result so these are all now factored when making our ICC profiles.

First thing first would be to check the t-shirts are compatible, check the temp and time settings and perhaps look at trying a HR paper for better ink release.

Alex

[pw66]

Not so sure that will Gimp allow you to use ICC profiles when printing. From what I remember ( unless it has changed) you can add profiles for display purposes and 'soft profiling' but Gimp won't control the printer colour management.

If that is the case your cheapset option is Affinity designer.

[GazzaBJ]

Thanks for all the replies, I now have printing sorted, using 100% polyester shirts, it comes out amazing!

Once again thanks guys, I have another possible question, which I'll post shortly if I don't find an answer