Sorry for jumping into this thread so late but I hope we can help by sharing our experience of using the transfer papers that we currently stock. As discussed in the thread, there are questions surrounding inkjet vs laser and what printer to choose.
Our inkjet papers are currently more popular than our laser papers. We think that this could be down to the fact that most people start out using inkjet printers and get used to products like Jet-Pro Sofstretch and 3G Jet-Opaque. Jet-Pro Sofstretch is probably one of the thinnest transfers on the market which is why it is so popular. It is always best to print our inkjet transfers with pigment inks rather than standard dye-based or sublimation as pigment inks are more water resistant and wash better. We mainly use an Epson DX9400F printer for testing inkjet printers as it comes with Durabrite (pigment) inks. We find that Epson tends to be the most popular brand of inkjet printer amongst our customers most likely because many Epson printers use pigment ink cartridges. Inkjet papers will print on virtually any paper setting and rarely ever jam and for that reason, most technical queries tend to be with the laser papers.
From our experience, if your printer budget is at the lower end (£100-£200) then you'll probably get a more reliable inkjet printer. We were fans of inkjet papers until we purchased an OKI C610 (around £500) for testing the laser papers. This changed our view as the print quality is superior to our Epson inkjet printer. We have successfully used our OKI to print all of our laser papers but with laser printing you have to be prepared to carry out tests to find the optimum settings. From our experience, laser papers (especially self-weeding) are more sensitive to pressing temperatures and pressure. Therefore, laser printing is an option for people looking for a longer term solution and you will need a bit of patience. Finding the right printer setting for a laser printer is the most common technical query. This is the advice we give when trying laser papers for the first time...
[INDENT]Run a few sheets of blank paper through your printer to warm it up and select normal print/image quality. Starting with a normal or plain paper setting, print one sheet of transfer paper at a time using a bypass tray if possible. Gradually increase the paper weight setting* until the toner fuses well and the image does not smudge.[/INDENT]
[INDENT]
*Papers will usually work better on a slower paper setting e.g. heavy paper, transparency or label mode but always start with a normal paper setting and increase the paper weight setting gradually to reduce the chance of jamming.
[/INDENT]
You should not be able to smudge the image after a couple of minutes of it being printed. If the image can be smudged then the toner is not fused properly. You can usually solve this by choosing a slower paper setting. An advantage of choosing laser over inkjet is the ability to use self-weeding papers. Digi-Trans and Image Clip Laser Light/Dark/Koncert T's are the self-weeding papers that we stock. Digi-Trans has showed reduced washability with some printers (regardless of printer price) so is best for promotional items or items like tote bags which won't be washed often.
The next most common query is about contour cutting, weeding and peeling. Cut settings are really important in order to make the weeding process as easy as possible. Our Laser 1 Opaque paper (laser paper for darks) has a slightly higher peel force than our equivalent inkjet paper and it therefore becomes more critical that the blade only cuts the film layer (upper layer of coating) as even lightly scoring the backing paper (carrier sheet) will make the image much more difficult to peel away from the backing.
If someone is genuinely interested in switching from inkjet to laser then we can supply printed samples using our OKI C610. We have listed the settings we use for our printer below but these are likely to vary between different printers. We also
always use the Multipurpose tray when printing.
- Digi-Trans - Ultra Heavy 2 (189-220g/m2)
- Techni-Print 4.0 - Heavy (105-120g/m2)
- Laser 1 Opaque - Ultra Heavy 1 (121-188g/m2)
- Image Clip Laser Light - Heavy (105-120g/m2)
- Image Clip Laser Dark - Heavy (105-120g/m2)
- Image Clip Koncert T’s - Heavy (105-120g/m2)
- Mugs ‘n’ More - Medium (83-104g/m2)
We hope that some of the above might be of use. The big thing that we have learnt ourselves is that image transfer is not an exact science. Settings often need to be adjusted for different equipment and substrates :S
