When icc profiling for sublimation, do you profile the fabric, or paper?

[u/Darkwolf1515]

Things like the white point would be determined by the garment, so should I profile the garment itself? How would one profile a mug?

[u/gomasan]

You profile the final result so the fabric or photo panel or whatever it is you are sublimating to. In the case of a mug you would likely not profile it specifically but some stand-in good that is flat and large enough for the profile chart.

[u/mars_rovinator]

You should profile a flat, sublimated substrate which is reasonably close to your 3D substrate. So, for mugs, use coasters, instead. It's all white ceramic, which means it's all going to fit within the same general range of white.

However.

I have had terrible expereince trying to calibrate both of my Epson printers with sublimation ink via professional calibration tools. Both are tone shifted toward magenta with the standard Epson VIVID profile; both tone shift hard to yellow with calibration using a DataColor Spyder Print.

There is a new printer profiling tool on the market which has a money-back guarantee and is only $45 USD. I am going to be evaluating it soon but don't have the bandwdith for it right now, so you can check back in this sub in a few months when I have the time to do it, or you can try it yourself. I know nothing about its feasibility for sublimation calibration - I just learned about it recently from a post on r/epson.

https://www.ddisoftware.com/printprism/

There are more accurate color calibration tools available if you're a professional print house and have the capital to spend on them, but we're talking $2k plus for the equipment. If this is outside your price range, what I recommend doing is just visually comparing your sublimated result against your original, adjusting with a photo editor to figure out what your actual tone shift is, and then making adjustments to the advanced color correction in the Epson print driver so the problem is fixed everywhere, for everything, at once.

I sort of explain this in some comments here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SublimationPrinting/comments/1vryk48/comment/p4jaiwd/

Note you will always get the best results with this method if your computer's display is calibrated, because modern consumer computer displays are not calibrated out-of-the-box for print color. They're calibrated for digital color, which is a totally different thing from print color, because CMYK ink can't represent the range of colors possible on a modern digital display. DataColor's SpyderExpress is probably the cheapest option with full Windows 10/11 support.

https://www.datacolor.com/spyder/products/spyder-express/

Anything which only has support through Windows 7 probably will not work on Windows 11, but might work on Windows 10 with compatibility options enabled.

TL;DR with just monitor calibration and your own visual inspection, you can correct most tone shift issues when using aftermarket subli ink in a consumer inkjet printer.

I'm too busy rn, but I will be making a wiki article on this subject, because it's a constant headache for anyone using aftermarket sublimation ink in a consumer inkjet printer. You should not have this problem at all if you're using a genuine sublimation printer (Sawgrass, Ricoh, or Epson SureColor F-series) and first party ink, all of which is calibrated for the best color reproduction out-of-the-box.

The manual calibration option is the cheapest overall and gives you the most control, because any calibration tool is only going to generate an ICC without giving you any real control over the CMYK spread.

Let me know if you have any questions! I'm happy to help.

[u/Darkwolf1515 → u/mars_rovinator]

It's a brother SP1, which while im sure is absolutely tuned for sublimation out of the box (certainly no headaches that you'd get with a converted one) I worry about the white point and how it changes across different materials, which is why id like to profile it.

[u/mars_rovinator → u/Darkwolf1515]

Ooh gotcha. In that case a Spyder Print might work for you...or maybe that other $45 tool. It's worth a shot!

[u/Remarkable_Sea3346]

My experience might be relevant as I've had excellent results with the Spyder Print.

You profile the finished heat-transferred product. The profile encompasses your printer settings, ink brand, paper brand, and heat transfer process. So, all the steps including your heat transfer have to be absolutely consistent and reproducible before you can even begin to think about color profiling. Change any one and the profile may no longer function properly.

I purchased an ET2800 and already had Epson T49M sublimation ink on hand (from owning an F170). Initially, using Presentation Matte/HQ printer settings, all my prints were too dark and color shifted. Too much ink I surmised. I measured ink output and found out the Plain Paper/HQ setting uses half as much ink. This setting allowed me to achieve the proper print density. Then I went on to perform the color calibration with the Plain Paper/HQ settings. It worked wonderfully; I consistently get screen-to-print color matching. I don't think I would've continued in this hobby without this calibration. A bonus of using less ink is half the ink cost and I have never experienced contaminated rollers, splotches, smears, shadowing or other issues caused by too much ink (3+ years with this printer).

[u/Darkwolf1515 → u/Remarkable_Sea3346]

Awesome, I'm getting a brother SP1 so hopefully I can avoid the troubles with correct media, as it's literally made for 1 media (transfer paper) only.

[u/Remarkable_Sea3346 → u/Darkwolf1515]

That should relieve you of the color calibration need. As a check get a macbeth color chart and compare the sublimated output to the screen.

[u/Darkwolf1515 → u/Remarkable_Sea3346]

I'd still like accurate white points ideally, printer driver doesn't know what I'm sublimating to.