Newbie - Beginner help/ advice needed

[23express]

Hi

Would anyone be able to help or give some advice please?

Just started my learning journey and grateful I came across this wonderful forum.

Looking to sublimate mugs and T shirts to begin with before I look at anything else.

No idea model printers, or presses, equipment to buy or use.

Any help would be great in what to go with (pros cons) and what is working for you or the majority of you ��

Thanks in advance

[23express]

Hi,

Spent the morning looking for somewhere to start.

Find this on inkexperts site...

Any advice on whether this would be a good package to start off with please. And possibly who to contact at inkexperts to discuss further?

Any other advice would be great, thanks.

[ATTACH]7232[/ATTACH]

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[pw66]

That will get you in the game. Ink experts know their stuff with printers and inks. Never used their heatpresses, but the package is cheap enough for a start up.

[23express]

Hi Pat thanks for the response. This is all I want to do - hopefully not breaking the bank, and if this is something I enjoy, could always look into other things.

I don't have a personal laptop. Last one broke and not bothered with one for years.

Would any laptop work with the software needed for subbing?

Cheers

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[pw66]

Any Windows PC will work but not a Mac.
You will need some design software that supports the use of ICC colour profiles (which Ink Experts will probably include in the package). What software do you have?

[23express]

Don't currently have a working laptop. Need another so don't have any software.

Will look to buy a used laptop with windows.

What software do you use? And could you recommend a software for a beginner like me to use... Happy to learn too

Thanks

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[pw66]

There are free software packages, such as Gimp or Inkscape, but they can be difficult to master. If you are buying software then Affinity is the cheapest of the reasonable ones at about £80.
There are more expensive pro software packages such as Photoshop or Illustrator but these are subscription based at about £30 month.

A lot will depend on what type of images that you will be printing. If printing mainly photos then use a raster based package such as Affinity Photo or Photoshop. If designing your own images then a vector based package such as Affinity Designer or Illustrator is better. ( it is worth noting that most vector packages have basic photo editing tools included).

To be honest if you are starting out by printing other peoples images then all you really need is the ability to use ICC profiles and crop/resize images, so the cheaper the better.

[23express]

Thank you for the advice. I will look into these now [emoji106]

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[Justin]

Would always suggest Photoshop as the ideal software but that said, I print to all of my printers using QImage which is a RIP software, I simply save as a jpeg and print from there, very easy to use and controls the profiles for you.

Affinity Photo is a superb alternative to Photoshop and much cheaper.

[Justin]

We have the 2850 for some of our day to day work and it's a great little printer, decent output and low maintenance.