Sublimation Troubleshooting-Here’s What You Need to Know

Sublimation is an exciting way to create unique and personalized items, but it can be incredibly frustrating when things don't turn out as expected. When I first started sublimating about a year ago, it took me a solid six months of trial and error to really get the hang of it.

To help streamline the process and avoid as many mistakes as possible, here are five things to troubleshoot if you're having issues with your sublimation prints.

Correct Equipment and Supplies for Sublimation

Firstly, make sure you're using the correct sublimation equipment and supplies. This means a sublimation printer, sublimation paper, and blanks designed for sublimation. Now some things you can sublimate on, but not everything is made for sublimation. You can find a huge variety of sublimation blanks from tumbler blanks to keychains on the Pro World website.

If you're still in that research phase, I have all the basics outlined for you in my exclusive Sublimation Freebie so you can know exactly where to start.

Check Your Printer and Computer Settings

Secondly, you need to check your printer and computer settings. If you're feeling like your colors of your sublimation prints are just off, you should go to your printer properties and turn on borderless printing, use a premium matte presentation paper and change printer settings to high quality. Each printer’s settings are a little different as well as Macs versus Windows computers so it might take a few tries to find out what works best for your printer settings. For me, personally I have found having the mirror image checked off and adjusting color correction to Adobe RGB and the Gamma at 2.2 work best for the Epson printer. Now if you have the Sawgrass printer, you don’t have to worry about all these converting steps!

If you’re still having trouble with the ink and color settings, I recommend reaching out to the printer ink manufacturer to help you get it resolved. They might be able to share an ICC profile with you or specific settings that work best for their products.

So if you are continually having issues with your sublimation print images, definitely consider upgrading to a printer actually made for sublimation, not one that you have converted.

I really am obsessed with my Sawgrass1000, so I have the bigger print bed and just all of the issues that I used to have with my converted printer are non-existent.

Dull Sublimation Images

If your prints are looking dull and not vibrant, it's likely a problem with the one or all of the following things:

Too much time
Too much heat
Too much pressure applied

It sounds a bit backwards but if you have too much time, heat, or pressure it could cause the image to fade. Every press and blank is a little different, so you may need to do some trial and error to figure out the right settings. It’s always good to check the recommendations from the company where you are buying your sublimation blanks. Once you figure it out, keep a note in your phone with the settings for the items that you commonly do and the settings you found success with. Some examples would be, tumblers 385 for about 75 seconds and my mugs are at 400 for 240 seconds.

Sublimation Ghosting

Sublimation ghosting happens when your design has moved in the middle of pressing. I most commonly experienced ghosting with my sublimation tumblers. To prevent ghosting, I now make sure my design is taped and is not longer than the tumbler itself. No matter if it’s a tumbler you're working on or another type of blank you want to make sure you have the right paper size ready to go.

Blurry Prints

Just like the issues of dull or faded prints, it will come back to the amount of time, and temperature that you are using. In the past, I was experiencing ink bleeding blurriness with too much time and too much heat. So try to scale that back a little for what works with your press and the blanks that you are using. I know like with a lot of this, it really does take trial and error.

Remember that you will be doing some trial and error until you find the right fit, and that's okay.

Your Equipment

Equipment can really make a huge difference. If you are continually having issues, you may need to upgrade your equipment for more consistent, high quality prints. Testing the temperature of your equipment at various points with a temperature gun will give you some good information. This is how I discovered that the heat press that I had bought off of Amazon had put in its time but I needed to upgrade my equipment.

The last piece of equipment that you need to make sure is functioning properly is your printer. Make sure that you are keeping it clean, keeping it running so you don't get any clogs, which can cause streaks or lines in your finish. Don’t forget we need to make sure all of the settings are correct to achieve your desired final product.

Sublimation is a great way to make unique and personalized items, but it requires patience and practice. By troubleshooting the five issues outlined above, you can make sure you have all the information you need to get the perfect prints every time.