Looks like we will be giving up press on heat transfers altogether

[pisquee]

If I printed it on polyester canvas it would get a bit of artificial 'pop'.

But sublimating onto actual polyester doesn't give you an artificial pop - it is just showing you the full colour and contrast that fully and properly sublimated inks can achieve, rather than the farily washed out colours you are currently getting. I think this then goes back to you not using an ICC aware process. In our work, we create the ICC profile from scanning the colour charts from polyester fabric or a white coated aluminium sheet, so the colours we're expecting and see on screen are very close to what our final products are once printed - sublimating it doesn't add anything we're not expecting, and doesn't add anything 'artificial' - if we want a washed out pastel tone, that's how we colour it in photoshop, or if we want a really vibrant and saturated red, like a London bus, phone box, or postbox, then again that is what we get.
From looking at your pictures, you are achieving the same sort of look as a 50% polyester/50% cotton fabric, which I suppose in essence is what you're creating by coating the cotton fibres in a polymer based liquid/resin/carrier of some kind.

[rossdv8]

Oh my dear lad, I can assure you that polyester can very easily give an immense 'artificial pop' to almost any image. Polyester is by definition artificial.

From looking at your pictures, you are achieving the same sort of look as a 50% polyester/50% cotton fabric, which I suppose in essence is what you're creating by coating the cotton fibres in a polymer based liquid/resin/carrier of some kind.

Sadly, looking at the pictures is a poor way to judge. You should see some of the truly awful stuff posted here by long term members using the best equipment. Mugs with horrible washed out colours and various items with burnt browns where something should be black. I would wager that some of those people have the original sitting there looking perfect, and wondering why on earth it just doesn't look right in any of the dozen pictures they took of it.
I've only seen a few photos posted here where someone has taken the time to set up a lighting booth.

It doesn't matter what I do to cotton, the only way to make it bright and shiny like polyester is to put a polyester coating 'over it' and print on that. Others have already done that, with varying success.

I am NOT sublimating a polyester shirt. It will NOT have the same look as a polyester shirt.

My market is in the tropics, in a tourist area. It has to be tough enough to stand up to commercial laundromats, and to be worn day in, day out. It also has to add no more than a minute to the time, and no more than $1 to the materials cost.

I don;t always do dark and gloomy sunsets! The stuff I post on here is usually just stuff I'm playing with.
This was also without any ICC profile, and also printed from Linux or from the Android tablet - I can't remember which, to one of my Brother printers.

Printing without an ICC profile is not the reason my polyester shirts lack pop or punch in the colours. It is a personal choice when I am doing sunsets.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2325[/ATTACH]

[rossdv8]

If I want 'artificial pop' I do this with one of my sunrises/sunsets.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2326[/ATTACH]

[pisquee]

Sorry, you must have misunderstood what I was meaning. In a set-up like ours, our final printed colours on the polyester are what we calibrate to with our ICC profile, so that the polyester sublimation doesn't add any extra pop, it just gives the brightness and contrast we expect to see. Depending on the type of polyester we're using it will then either have a matt or glossy look, but the colours are just intense or pastelly as we see them on screen and expect.

I wasn't saying that you were sublimating to a polyester shirt, what I was saying was that your shirts look very similar in their print quality to a 50% polyester/50% cotton shirt, and I supposed that this was in effect because you were coating the cotton fibres of your shirts in a polymer solution, that you were ending up with a fabric similar to a 50% polyester/50% cotton mix.

We don't do t-shirts yet, but do print a lot of 100% polyester fabrics (of different types) for lampshades, cushion covers, and scarves, and I wouldn't be happy if our print quality looked that washed out.

In saying all of this, I am not saying you shouldn't do what you're doing - I am impressed with what you are trying to achieve, and that you've put so much work into it. I am more saying - don't give up, and keep going, as I can see improvements in your work. I do still think you could sort your colour problems out if you had a system able to use ICC profiles, and you had your own profiling kit to be able to make a colour profile specific to your ink/printer/and coated fabrics.

[rossdv8]

Thanks pisquee, and please don;t think I'm getting 'testy'. You've no doubt read the comments I've made before about the things you and paul have posted as replies to my posts, so you should know how much those comments have had to do with any improvements.

I live my life in severe pain, so sometimes I'm blunt and sometimes I ramble on.

ICC profiles are not an option as long as I have to print from an Android tablet or from Linux. Quite aside from the 'chalenge' aspect. Yes, it would be nice if it was automatically perfect, but that's not going to happen. And I am still having failures in the 100% cotton thing. Obviously when I have some success - I post it. An example is that if I soak a shirt in boiling water immediately after pressing, and leave it tightly balled up - in that first wash I can get some colour migrating into the treated fibres around the image.

Chances of a customer boiling a shirt these days are slim - but you never know.

I'm less worried about colour problems now that I can upload one of my images to an online national company and have them send back 'professional' work. In fact I'm quite happy when I can sit my product next to theirs and mine look better. I have a very small problem with red being a little too orange. I can live with that. Even that colour test that Paul put on this forum produced great results.

Once in a while I'll get excited by a result with one of these experiments, and post it. And if I'm lucky you and a few others will point out some stuff, that I may or may not defend, or explain.

But the comments are all read, and read again. I am a very small step away from making this work properly. I can't see a solution to the problem of cotton fibres 'brushing up' with machine washing, and at the moment my experiments are about reducing the cost, by reducing the amount of treatment used on each shirt, and the time it takes.

There's not much point spending $4 in consumables to put an image on a $4 shirt if it takes 15 minutes and you are only going to sell it for $25.

[RogerC]

Have you a similar pic that you can post so we can see what you mean please Roger?

Sorry Tony....the canvas has gone and I only have the original jpeg which wouldn't really show anything relative to the finished product.

[Andrew]

Having read most of this I am still a little confused......... is the 100% cotton shirt pre-soaked or coated in a solution that then becomes permanent in the cotton allowing the sublimation ink to also take hold? Is that what is trying to be achieved? Was the canvas a standard one or poly?

Some of the posts are starting to go around in circles so any clarification would help. Interesting thread though.

[rossdv8]

Andrew, it does tend to get off topic quickly. The cotton shirts are saturation treated with a water based urethane type product instead of being 'coated'.
The canvas is just your normal store bought artist's canvas, sprayed with a crystal clear polymer of the type that is used to coat watercolours to lock the colour and prevent paint running.

I had two shirts I can call 100% success and a number that faded to varying degrees, The problem was I didn't expect any success, so I didn't keep accurate notes of which process i used on which shirt. At present I am trying to remember exactly which process made the ones I can't destroy. Absolutely nothing has moved the colour from the cotton. I'm close again, getting up to 10 hot washes, but I have to get the 100 again.

[Ali P]

Hi Ross,
I have been reading this with interest and commend what you are doing. Experimentation with the supposed impossible is to be encouraged IMHO
One interesting area that hasn't been mentioned is why some people prefer cotton (in addition to wishing to wear in hot places). It seems that polyester T shirts are generally promoted as comparable to cotton, but for many, they are not an option. Some people with sensitive skin who easily suffer irritation, insist on cotton, whether it be their clothing or their bedding. So the market for natural fabrics will always be there. Are you able to explore the effects of the saturation during your experiments - I know measuring irritation isn't the easiest thing to do without a willing volunteer lol, but it would be interesting to know the effects of the product on the skin

[NikGrey]

There's not much point spending $4 in consumables to put an image on a $4 shirt if it takes 15 minutes and you are only going to sell it for $25.

Well Said.