Ink/paper/printer issue

[webtrekker]

Hmm .... The profile they sent me for my Ricoh seems spot on. It's certainly not an exact science this sublimation lark, is it!

[mags1892]

Hmm .... The profile they sent me for my Ricoh seems spot on. It's certainly not an exact science this sublimation lark, is it!

if you do it properly yes

[pw66]

Hmm .... The profile they sent me for my Ricoh seems spot on. It's certainly not an exact science this sublimation lark, is it!

Takes some trial and error, until you get it right.
Maybe that's why Sawgrass sell so many Viruosi?

[Sugar]

City ink is chinese its not consistent there is really no batch to batch control. Plenty of blacks look brown until they are pressed infact some very high end ink looks this way. If you want consistancy buy a well know branded ink or an ink manufacturered in europe / Uk. if you want cheap buy chinese and live with the results. the cost difference inst that much if you pick a better ink to be fair also youll get a shed loads of better support from a UK supplier of UK ink than a chinese importer who has NO CONTROL.

Actually, after I checked their website (a lot of replacement parts just in case) and Youtube channel (which is good place to get some information about CISS, clear instructions), I thought that they know what they are doing and I will receive after sale support without any problems. No support, only distributors, not producers.

And 1 year warranty... yeah... sure...

I have used City Ink Expresses sub ink. The ink is OK, but the ICC profile they provided is useless. All the colours are too dull. I think they do their own custom profiles in house, so maybe they aren't too familiar with profiling for sublimation.
I get better results on the Epson 1500w using the 1500w 'standard' profile.

The picture below shows two t-shirts I printed earlier this week. The one on the right is using City Inks profile, the blues are purple, the reds are orange the yellow is too dull and the grey is sepia. The one on the left using 1500 standard has bright blues, reds and yellow, and the grey is about right. The colours from the Epson profile are pretty much spot on.

Today, I received a second ICC profile (I prepared 3 test charts for them, just in case - of course, I didn't print just 3 copies, but every time I've done everything from the beginning).

Result? No changes, same problems with colors as before (same as yours pw66).

Additionally, on the first time I sent them a transparent film also (they confirmed that they can do ICC profile without any problems). I received a message that something went wrong. Probably I did the printing on the wrong side. Which is impossible.

So, no more City Ink Express.


Regarding white spots and print head cleaning - there is no big difference.

[Lucifax]

Hi,

We have only used City Ink Express this year for ink and they have been great. They can be tricky to get hold of but an E-mail is usually responded to within a day. We found their ICC peofiles a good starting point but do tweak things a bit. Wife's a graphic designer of 25 plus years though so it comes second nature to her. She just told me go to Photoshop : image/adjust/brightness/ +25 to 35 and adjust/vibrance/ +40 produces lovely sharp, punchy graphics printing with Epson wf7010 / Truprint HR paper and City Ink inks.

With regard to the black ink being brown, it is almost definately getting too hot. Sometimes it will even show brown slightly until the item (only ever seen it on ceramics) cools down. We press ceramics at 180 for 180 seconds and by the time things cool the blacks are fine.

The white spots ...... try using a very good quality paper. We only use Trueprint HR (High Release) paper as we print on both ceramic and textiles and it's great for that. We have seen banding with the CIE inks with other papers. It most definately seems to be an ink / paper / epson combo though so I would suggest picking up a box of Truprint HR to try as that set up has run on our two epson wf printers non stop this year without an issue.

I didnt have time to read every answer so apologize if I covered old ground, but hope it's helpful if not.

[beyondballoons]

I get better results on the Epson 1500w using the 1500w 'standard' profile.

Pw66...I am having similar issues with colours …. What did you mean by the standard profile? Which one is that?
Thanks. Stuart

[beyondballoons]

Hi Everyone,
Just seen this post, and how new it was and I am having similar issues with a new EPSON 1500W with City Ink Express on TruePix Paper.
I chose the Epson 1500w for sublimation as I already have one that prints photos and banners with "Normal Ink" and it has been a workhouse with excellent quality compared to the screen image this is so good that is the reason i went with the same machine.

We have set up and gone through the process 3 times with a fine tooth comb on the instructions to make sure we were getting it right, with the same results (isnt it the case of something about insanity being repeating the same thing expecting differing results)

This image below is showing LEFT - screen shot from Photoshop - MIDDLE - camera shot of photo from EPSON 1500W RIGHT Sublimation on MUG from new Epson 1500W
Firstly the MIDDLE Camera shot isnt brilliant it looks pretty much the same as the screenshot to the normal eye - the camera has distorted this.
However, you can see the massive difference in contrast and colouring to the Mug Sublimation.

vB_ID:4272

Mugs 1.jpg (16.65 KiB) Viewed 28 times

Then there is this picture below again showing the Photoshop screen capture on the left, and then the mugs on the right ... The top mug with the ICC provided and the Bottom Mug, with a slight tweak on Printer settings

vB_ID:4272

Mugs 1.jpg (16.65 KiB) Viewed 28 times

vB_ID:4272

Mugs 1.jpg (16.65 KiB) Viewed 28 times

I understand there will maybe fine tuning from an ICC, but this just looks drastically out!
I have printed the mugs with 180 for 180s, 170 for 150s and 180 for 120s and this does not alter the outcome.

It just looks like the contrast and colouring are up way too much.

Any thoughts on directions from here. I am already liaising with Paul to get another ICC but am I missing something .... shouldnt an ICC be accurate!

Kind regards.

Stuart

[pw66]

Pw66...I am having similar issues with colours …. What did you mean by the standard profile? Which one is that?
Thanks. Stuart

The Epson comes with a variety of pre installed profiles for various paper types. On the printing profiles page, click on the 'advanced' menu tab select ICM (top right) and you can select Input and printer profiles. You will also need to go into your design software (colour management) to set the target profile to the same as input profile on the printer.

It works for me, not perfect on all colours, but better than the City Ink Express one.

There is no substitute for the correct ICC profile.

[mags1892]

using colour management on the driver AND the software is a big NONO, you wil get allsorts of weiord calculations and rounding errors. If using an ICC in an applicatio turn the colour management OFF in the driver or vice versa. Id always suggest using photoshop or whichever app for colour management rather than the printer driver, as the driver is designed for the OEM inks which are not sublimation inks and behave completely differently. Only use the driver to set the ink limits which is acheived by picking the correct paper type (usually matte).