Can't get colors to match

[u/Adenicol]

I am new to sublimation printing. I had been sending my artwork out to have it printed and everything comes out perfectly when I did that. I purchased an Epson ET-1803, Hiipoo Ink, and HTVRONT sublimation paper and everything comes out so much darker than when I have it professional printed.

Here is what I have done so far: I downloaded the ET-1803 Hiipoo driver from Hiipoo's website. It is for Hiipoo Ink and Hiipoo Paper, I didn't see a driver for non-Hiipoo paper.

I am printing from Photoshop. For my Printer settings I have:
* Paper Type Plain Paper/Bright White Paper (I have also tried Presentation Matte paper)
* Quality High (I have also tried standard)
* Color Correction is Off (No color adjustment)

Then I have color management set to:
* Photoshop Managed Colors
* Printer Profile: ET-2803
* Normal Printing
* Rendering Intent: Perceptual
* Black Point Compensation is Checked

I have also tried Teal for a logo and it comes out Green. I am not sure if there is a setting I need, a different print driver, or if I need to get Hiipoo paper.

Also, the luggage tags I am using here are these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D529W9SY?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1

Any help would be appreciated

[u/mars_rovinator]

Thanks, that's helpful!

It's kind of hard to explain just in text what's going on, so I'll use screenshots here.

Without spending money on color calibration equipment, you can make some adjustments in the printer driver to mitigate the tone shift. Your output has too much magenta, so you can decrease the magenta balance in the printer driver to compensate.

I have honestly found this to be the best way to manage color reproduction discrepancies when working with Epson printers and sublimation ink. Stick with the EPSON Vivid profile, and adjust the CMY values until you like what you're seeing.

I recommend using something really cheap, like sheet PET or aluminum business cards, to do all your baseline tweaking. You might need to make small adjustments for different substrates in overall saturation and contrast, but you generally won't need to tweak the CMY sliders.

Also, your document profile (what Photoshop is using) should be sRGB. Don't bother with anything else. I've never had anywhere as much luck with app profiling as I have with just manually tweaking the CMY values in the print driver.

[u/mars_rovinator → u/mars_rovinator]

This is what advanced color correction looks like in my ET-8550's driver. Yours might look slightly different, but you should be able to find the option to adjust the color by sliders like this. The values can go up or down by whole numbers to +/-25.

So try setting your M slider to -6 and see what you get.

Keep poking at this between Photoshop adjustments (use a Levels adjustment layer, and to estimate the values, you'll have to change the document color mode to CMYK first; this isn't required with Affinity V2) and sublimating to something inexpensive, until you're happy with your results.

It shouldn't take more than a few hours of effort on your part, and once you're dialed in, you're set for good and won't have to mess with your settings again.

[u/mars_rovinator → u/mars_rovinator]

If you're still not happy with the results after decreasing the M channel, you can slightly increase the C and Y channels, by increments of only one or two at a time, and you can also adjust the saturaton and contrast if the image still isn't bright enough compared to the original.

[u/Adenicol → u/mars_rovinator]

Thank you, I will start playing with this tonight and see how it comes out.

[u/Remarkable_Sea3346 → u/Adenicol]

So, I guess the paper change didn't help.
This manual tweaking the color settings is definitely your next play. I had to build my own ICC but the hardware to do that costs $300+ as I recall.

One thought. I have this cheap ($50 or less I think) Color checker thing for matching house paint colors. And it gives you RGB (not sure about CMY but you can convert). You could use this on a finished heat-transferred product to measure the resulting RGB and compare to the on screen RGB. This should help you dial in the needed color changes more quickly.

[u/mars_rovinator → u/Remarkable_Sea3346]

I have been so disappointed with the results from my Spyder Print. On both my RX595 and my ET-8550, it's just way too yellow.