Sublimation woes...:(

[Brie -Anne Bryan]

Hi Everyone! I'm hoping someone out there can help me with a sublimation question!!
I have a job that we do every year...problem is we had an epson workforce last year and switched over to the Ricoh GX7000 this year. It seems no matter what I do
I cannot get it to look the same as last year. The artwork is mostly red, and I've heard that they're the worst to match
I've tried RBG...CMYK....powerdriver/no powerdriver....turning off color management...messing with all sorts of settings....to no avail.
It either turns out too orange or too pink...but it needs to be red. it also doesn't look quite opaque enough. Any suggestions?

[Mike Null]

I've had my worst problems with blue but I'd put a call in to your ink supplier to be sure your color driver is set properly in Corel. If you've done that then run a series of color swatches until you find the match.

I'm moving this to the dye sub forum.

[Scott Shepherd]

What is the thing you are trying to sublimate? Is it a photograph with red in it, a pantone color red in vector graphics? What paper are you using? You have switched printers, did you switch paper? There is paper made for the Ricoh. It will give a bit different results than the other paper. If you did switch paper, try switching back to your old paper. If you didn't switch paper, try switching to a paper made for the Ricoh. You should be able to go into the driver and crank up the red also. You shouldn't be printing in CMYK, that's for sure.

What's the substrate? Same brand? Same supplier? How long are you sublimating for and how large is the piece?

[AL Ursich]

Do you have this Vivid Selection? That will make a difference...

And remember that Pressing Time and Temp will change the color.... I have had problems until I standardized my time and temp to the second.

And look at your artwork too.... I had a project that I shipped later and the color was different... Orange.... Looked at the Artwork and I had a RED UNDER the ORANGE.... From a Copy and Paste....

SO.... Slide your top level of the color to the side looking for a under color....

Try a range of Time and Temp to find the Sweet Spot for the old work.

Good Luck,

I do a lot of RED....

AL

[Martin Boekers]

I gave up on the Epson because of inconsistant color even for prints made week to week.
probably ink jets partially clogged. If your using Sawgrass the will be a big help.
Also once you get away from an ICC profile you'll run yourself around in circles. I bought
my printer from Conde and they supplied their own ICC profile. It is a bit confusing
setting up your color management properly. Sawgrass or your ink supplier should be able
to walk you through it

[Brie -Anne Bryan]

Hi Everyone,
Thanks for all your responses. We did switch to the ricoh paper when we switched printers. I do not have any more old paper to try...but up until this point it's been really good. For the most part I've been using the powerdriver with the setting saturated with the colorsure turned on. Ive also tried the realisitic and the intense setting with no real difference. The image is basicall a red fountain fill background with some picture graphics overtop. I am subbing it on white dynasub aluminum...the same as every year. They are just 6x8 plaques. I am using the same heat and time settings (350 degrees for 30 seconds). Someone mentioned and ICC profile. I'm not too sure what this is...I googled it and found a tutorial for X4 but not for X5. Hopefully I can figure this out otherwise I guess I will be calling our ink supplier.

Thanks!

[Scott Shepherd]

I'd bet money on the paper. There is a substantial difference in papers. Enough to make colors wrong.

An ICC profile is a special color "profile" that's built by the people that make/sell the ink/paper/substrates. It tells the printer how to print ink for that particular material. You can't get that from the internet, so to speak, it's nothing to do with X3 or X4, etc. Well, technically it is, but it's something your ink or materials supplier would supply you with and help you get set up.

So when you print, it looks at the printer and says "Oh, this is dye sub, on white aluminum" and it uses the settings specifically for that (more or less, that's what's happening).

Conde has developed a very nice profile that works very well. I get much better colors with Conde's setup versus the PowerDriver.

[Brie -Anne Bryan]

Hi Scott,

Thanks for allyour suggestions...but I was on the phone with sawgrass and I've discovered that our ink supplier sent us chromablast ink instead of subli-jet!!!
Apparently you are never supposed to mix the two
Our Ricoh might be R.I.P......

[Martin Boekers]

YIKES! Hopefully your supplier will take care of it. You may try it on some Cotton Tees (I think thats what its made for)
if you like it offer them half price or less. That is if you would want to do tees. If you paid by charge card that will help.
Good Luck!

[Brie -Anne Bryan]

I spoke with our ink supplier today and fortunately for me, they are really sorry that they sent us the wrong inks and are taking full responsibility. In the event that our printer is unsalvageable, they said they would take care of it.
I am really happy about this otherwise I'm pretty sure I'd be in a whole lot of trouble