#1 Must-Known Tips for Sublimation Beginners - from Printer Conversion to Color Correction

Today, I’d like to talk about sublimation printing, the process of printing onto transfer paper, letting the ink dry, then heating it at high heat. From there, the solid ink will turn to a colored gas, binding with a T-shirt, mouse pad, or whatever else you want to make.

Sublimation tends to be low-cost, and you will probably already have everything you need (except for sublimation ink). After acquiring sublimation ink, you can use it for personal DIY projects or even start a small business. For example, around Christmas time, you can use sublimation printing to print out a few ornaments you can give your friends and family as gifts.

Here are a few things you’ll need to know about sublimation printing if you’re starting out.

1. Equipment

To start with, you’re going to need a printer. I recommend the Epson EcoTank printer. If you already have one, I’ll show you how to change the ink to sublimation ink. If not, you can order a new one and fill it with sublimation ink immediately.

I recommend the Epson EcoTank because you won’t have to worry about dealing with ink cartridges. If you have a printer with ink cartridges, I’ve got a few other videos on my YouTube channel about converting them.

We will use a set called EZ ink in the demonstration video I made to go with this blog. It comes with black, cyan, magenta, and yellow inks and an accessory bag. You’ll also need a heat press. I prefer a clamp shell because it’s safe and requires less space. The kind that swings open takes up quite a bit of space.

If you use a different heat press, ensure the temperature can get over 410 degrees. You should always print on the white side when you get sublimation paper. Some sublimation papers will have a logo on the back, and others will have a color. Either way, you always want to print on the white side.

2. Converting Epson Ink to Sublimation

You’ll see Epson’s ink refilling port in the front right corner of your Epson EcoTank printer. They designed this port to only receive ink from bottles with a specially designed nozzle. Therefore, I recommend saving your old Epson ink bottles and putting some sublimation ink into them to refill them. EZ ink will already have those special nozzles built in. They also come with syringes and needles, which are an invaluable resource when refilling other kinds of sublimation printers.

To use the EZ ink, remove the plastic cap, and you’ll see the special nozzle. Lift the tab and turn the ink bottle upside down, fitting the nozzle to the corresponding piece on the printer. Before we can do that, we need to remove the old ink from the printer.

Start by unplugging the printer and moving the printhead to the right side. Rotate the gear counterclockwise three times, which will free the printhead. Remove the screw holding the protective cover in place and lift it out of the printer.

In the accessory bag, there will be a pair of gloves. Go ahead and put those on. On the top of the dampers, you’ll see a tab. Push in on it, and you should be able to remove the damper. Now it’s very important to lift all of the tabs on the refill port.

You’ll find a syringe in the ink package’s accessory bag. Use that to start drawing ink out. You can either save the ink or discard it. Once the old ink is removed, remove the sublimation ink and unscrew the top. Turn it upside down and match it to the correct ink intake. Press the nozzle straight down, and you should hear a noise like someone drinking water. If you check, you’ll see the ink level rising.

After you’ve converted the ink in the printer, go to the maintenance section of your printer’s LCD screen. Click the clean printhead option, and you’ll want to clean the printhead three times. You’ll now have a sublimation printer.

3. Calibrating the Color

Next, we’ll have to do some tweaking to ensure we get the color right. For most sublimation printers, you don’t need to pay too much attention to CMY. You mostly only need to focus on getting the black ink right.

There are two reasons we’re going to do this. The first is that the human eye looks for contrast. The more contrast an image has, the sharper we’ll perceive it. When you get the black ink right, your eyes will ignore most of the errors in the color, if there are any. The second reason is that the CMY inks are more tolerant. The black ink is by far the pickiest one. If you get the black correct, all other colors should fall into place.

To begin the process, google a CMYK image. For fabrics, we’ll set the time to 45 seconds and try three temperature levels. We put the material on the bottom and the transfer paper on top for color on thicker material. Metal usually gets longer at a lower temperature, and soft materials do high temperatures for shorter amounts of time.

Not all shades of black are the same. You’ll have to train your eye to see the subtle differences. Without comparison, you might think one thing is true black when it’s actually a dark brown. Once you can tell them apart, you’ll be able to do a much better job.

When doing metal, put the sublimation paper on the bottom. This will allow you to better align the piece of metal with the print. I hope this blog helps! Watch a video version of this blog here, and don’t forget to subscribe!