DSF

Hi everybody,

I've been around the forum for just over a week or so (a short period as a guest), loads of great information which I've been checking out as I embark on my sublimation hobby journey.

I've been doing various tests and experiments between materials, and trying different temperatures/durations to try and come up with some kind of correlation for my own understanding.

e.g. hotter > shorter duration > burnt colours etc.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and whilst I am happy with how I am sublimating coloured images at the moment, I thought I'd challenge myself and sublimate a B&W image. I've tried this maybe 7 or 8 times now on polyester, and I think I have found the sweet spot, I am happy with how it sublimates there. I have identified on polyester where the black ink burns and becomes a warm image. The one that I am struggling to really nail is slate (unsurprisingly) - I can't seem to come up with anything noticeable that changes the result. I don't know if I'm just being too fussy, and if my B&W slates are just destined to have a warm hue to them.

I made the newbie mistake of trying with some large slates 19x19, and as you'd expect, screwed them up - oops! So, I figured I'd get hold of some smaller ones (9x9) and more of them, to try and test.

I've spent a considerable amount of time reviewing the various threads on slate on the forum, noting methods that have been tried, and trying them myself, but I just can't seem to nail the black and white image without the warm hue. I thought I'd reach out and ask your opinions, what do you think?



From L to R, I've got:
480s at 185c - Face down
420s at 180c - Face down
400s at 180c - Face down

I am currently pre-heating the rear of the slate for 60s, then the white surface for 60s (my first few slates had a real issue with moisture in them), allowing to cool for a few minutes and then sublimating.

All of these are using the correct ICC for the material and it does deliver colour prints well, it's just these black and white images! I have checked the B&W image itself to ensure that it's actually black-and-white and there's no colour in it, which it's all good.

Keen to hear your thoughts and perhaps suggestions, or if I'm just being a bit too fussy!

Thanks, and looking forward to continuing to learn here.

myke

If you're going the perfectionist route, then you'd be best getting a ICC profiling system (SpyderPrint or ColorMunki) and making your own profiles for each substrate you print on... maybe even doing seperate colour and monochrome ones.

We do all slates at 197c for 600 secs, preheat for 125 secs

You might be asking a bit too much from sublimation to get these images any better. It will depend on a huge number of possible factors, for example different coatings on slates from different manufacturers gives different results. What printer/inkset are you using?

Thanks Pisquee, I've been aware of those kinds of things in a photography capacity, so may be worth me considering in the long term! Thanks for suggestion

Thanks Justin, yeah, I might be over expecting - I've actually not seen sublimated slates in person apart from those that I have done myself (I don't think), so very much going by how other images and tutorial videos look online to benchmark how I'm doing.

I'm using an Epson ET-2720 and Sublinova Inkset for now. One thing I did think about is that I've not been setting the printer driver to 'Grayscale only', as I had read elsewhere this can play mishaps with the ICC profile. I'm now wondering if that will be worth a try; I'm also going to try a different B&W image I think.

I'm happy with them, I just didn't want to think 'ok I've got my settings for this one', to then later find that somebody with a bit more experience is like 'Noo, they're definitely over pressed'. I'm pleased that neither of you have looked at them and thought 'wow what a mess, they're completely off'

Appreciate your help so far, thank you