Losing the will to print anything. Help!!!! :o(

[Joohlyauk]

Hi all, I'm extremely new to printing anything, in as much as I haven't printed one single thing yet. I thought I'd try and get the images ready first. I've got the mug press, t shirt heat press (later today) all of the special inks and transfer papers, two new printers, mugs, t shirts. Hmmmm I didn't realise how difficult I'd find it trying to print anything getting the sizes right and not stretching the pictures, blurry, crap. I have searched for images with high resolution but I think I'm just useless. Can anybody point me in the right direction, even free prints I can use that work would be rather great. I've got that failure feeling creeping around and I'll be buggered if I'm going to give up! HELP!!! :rolleyes:

[socialgiraffe]

First of all, there is a thread on here (somewhere) that gives you a test piece of artwork to use for mugs. I think the original poster was Paul, locate that and use that for testing.

When it comes to sizes on mugs, start with 180mm width by 80mm deep. You can go wider and deeper but to start with use that size and you will be fine. With regards to stretching images etc, I would assume this is a problem with your ability to use the software. Please do not take offense to that, its just an assumption.

What software are you printing from? It needs to be a professional graphics programme (such as Photoshop) so you can ensure that you are getting the resolution you require.

If you detail the following then members on here will be able to help you better.

Software you are using
Printer you are using
Inks you are using
Paper you are using
Profile you are using
Temps and times you are using
Machinery you are using

Without all of the above it would be difficult to determine exactly where you are going wrong.

[Joohlyauk]

Hiya, thanks for your info. I'll try and locate Paul's test piece. I've got photoshop but you are correct in that I haven't got a clue yet as how to use it. I tried turning pixels to percent and changing up by 5% but I reckon the image was just too small to get to the size I wanted. I'll keep messing around and get back to the questions. Thank you

[Dave271069]

A good camera or even half decent phone camera will get you a print that's ok to use, it won't be as good as a professional image but 99% of my customers who send me a image is from ther phones, when you open a new blank file in photoshop measure your blank and make it slightly bigger. I then click file and place and find the image. I then press shift whilst I stretch the image to the size of the blank then print.
This is basic stuff and I may be wrong bit it works for me. I'm sure someone will tell me if I'm doing something wrong?
dave

[socialgiraffe]

Try the following:

Start a new photoshop file with the settings exactly as attached.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1930[/ATTACH]

Insert pictures, text, anything you want into this file. If you insert images which need resizing by all means do, but make sure you increase the zoom level of your document to 100% to check that the image is not pixelated. In an ideal world you would only ever decrease the size of your images as increasing them will pixelate them more. If you add text make sure that if you want to increase this you do so by increasing the point size within PS and not by scaling any rasterised type.

Once you get something that vaguely resembles something to print and test then do so.

If you print this using the correct ICC profile then it will sublimate well (depending on quality of ink, paper and blanks etc).

If the above works then I would suggest a book on Photoshop might be your starting point

[rossdv8]

So you are not wasting mugs with test prints (like I did), buy a 100% polyester white bed sheet and cut it into mug sized pieces. Wrap the piece around a spare mug and sublimate the cloth. You can spray the mug with a little sptay contact adhesive to hold the cloth in place.
Wrap the sublimatino print around the mug outside toe cloth, cover the whole thing with a piece of white copy paper and slip it into the mug press.

When the colours look about right - try printing to a mug and work on your heat, time and pressure.
I wasted half a carton of mugs before I hit on this idea. Now I waste a few inches of cheap bed sheet material when I want to road test a new design

[rossdv8]

BTW. When you say you are losing the will to print anything. Wasting blanks is expensive, but I was amazed at how little ink is actually used. Paper is also relatively cheap. So with the method above you can play a little and practice.
And the experienced people on this forum are great with advice and help.

Cheers,

RossD.

[Joohlyauk]

Thank you so much for all of your help. I have indeed bought a book on photoshop. It cost a massive 1p from Amazon and it is the dogs! It is called Photoshop 7 Classroom in a book and comes with a cd, so gives lessons to have a go. I can now see how ridiculous I was two weeks ago and how much I have learnt since then about resolutions, pixels etc. Brilliant! I'm thinking that I should fork out for the richol printer that is for sublimation. Sawgrass inks are expensive but if they give the best results that's where I'm going. I'm just about to print my first mug ever. I now know if it turns out shit it's my own fault for buying cheap. I've bookmarked BMS. I know I should do one thing at once but I'm really interested in getting a cameo silhouette cutter, they look amazing. Anyway, wish me luck. I really hope it doesn't explode like some other member on here experienced. Will put my bullet proof vest on just in-case.

Thank you

Julia