Why use a Sublimation Printer for T-Shirt Printing?

T-shirt printing by sublimation has grown into a substantial industry and has filled a market gap for high-quality, short-run printing of t-shirts and other promotional items. It is a heat transfer process, whereby a paper release liner is printed using sublimation dyes. The printed image turns into a gas with the application of heat, transferring the dye to the garment or item. With the Sublimation Process, you can finally print those Edge to Edge design, on any white or light color t-shirt. Quality is just amazing.

Advantages of Sublimation T-Shirt Printing

This process works wonders in our eyes because it ensures that the image you transfer onto your item won’t fade over time. The finish is also smooth, soft, and stylish because it literally becomes one with the substrate. This is perfect if you want to keep the soft-hand feel of the original garment.

From Cricket, Soccer, basketball and hockey t-shirts, to Lycra based fabrics for swimming, athletics and cycling, if they have graphics on them they have almost certainly been applied by sublimation.

Most performance fabrics today are polyesters, and to maintain the fabric’s feel and integrity, nothing does it better than dye sublimation. The vivid colors are also a prominent feature of dye sublimation inks. Performance fabrics have been developed to evaporate sweat to the surface and are extremely durable, yet stretchy, light and in an abundant range of finishes.

Digital dye sublimation can just as easily produce a one-off or a short run of items for a team, or use the same overall image but customise each individual t-shirt. In fact, many designs can only be produced by inkjet sublimation, creating a completely new market for digital only sports clothing producers.

Digital dye sublimation is also ideal for hard-wearing and eye-catching sports accessories and equipment such as gloves, helmets, skis, surfboards and much more.

Digital sublimation has been used by many leading high-end fashion houses during the last decade or so. There are incredible polyester fabrics for designers to choose from and many feel far from synthetic. From glossy satins for ties, tops and dresses, to hefty thick canvases for luggage.

Colors were mostly specified as ‘spot colours’ and CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) was rarely used. Having the widest colour pallet available for digital dye sublimation printing is certainly of great importance to the fashion industry where there is often less room for compromise, and digital print
processes are being pushed to the limits of what colours are achievable.

The sharpness and clarity of prints and breath-taking photographic imagery makes digital dye sublimation the only choice for many types of apparel, from performance sports to Paris couture.

Expected Results

T-shirts printed by sublimation have a noticeably softer feel to the printed area. Since imprints are dye-based, rather than ink-based, the dye actually becomes part of the fabric color, embedded within the fibers.

• Sublimation is one of the very few ways where full colored images can be printed on hard surfaces.
• There are unlimited colors to choose from. So many colors can be produced with sublimation, it never costs extra if you want to add some other colors to your design.
• Same cost for printing one product or thousand products. So no need to order minimum and are perfect for promotional items for schools, charities, parties, sports team, small businesses and many more.
• Full customization and the advantage of digital sublimation is that no plates are needed, so it is best for customized designs, with changing elements like numbers and names.
• It is a quick and easier way of printing, it can be done on the same day or same hour itself to get the finished product. Also, it is made based on demand so, no scope of wastage or any risk.
• You get three-dimensional printing.
• Moreover, it is environment-friendly

With so many advantages of sublimation printing, it is really obvious it has become very popular and a very profitable in the domain of digital printing business.

Applications

Digital sublimation printing works on white and light colored, polyester or poly coated substrates. Athletic textiles, sports performance apparel, ceramic products and poly coated fiber reinforced plastic are some of the main product categories. Digital sublimation printing is also used in the creation of trade show displays, snowboards, skis and skateboards.

What Do You Need To Get Started In Sublimation?

You will need an inkjet printer, sublimation inks, sublimation paper, and a heat press. In addition, you will need a white or light colored substrate that is either coated with a polyester coating or made of polyester fabric for sublimation to work.

DCC brought modern sublimation technology which has made it easy to enter the world of digital apparel printing. New advances in sublimation printing systems have yielded HD & photographic printing quality, a large range of colors options, faster printing & drying speeds and simple setups at our customers place. Sublimation printing is a process that requires six main Elements: Inkjet Printer, Sublimation Ink, Transfer Paper, RIP Software, Heat Transfer Machine & Fabric.

You will find complete solution of sublimation printing at DCC; everything from large formats to accessories to consumables. Not compromising on quality, DCC offers wide sublimation printers from brands like Epson & DGI; Heat transfer machine from Monti; sublimation inks from Epson, J-Teck & Black horse; not to forget sublimation paper from brand Jetcol and RIP Software from Wasatch RIP.