What You Need to Know about Dye-Sublimation Printing

Custom apparel, totes, bags, and other similar products are some of the trendiest and most effective forms of specialty marketing and promotional products. When choosing these custom products, there are many different options for customization and it is important to select the one that is right for the products you have chosen and the effect you want to make. One of these options is dye-sublimation printing.

Here’s what you need to know about this type of customization:

• Dye-sublimation is the ideal customization option for polyester materials such as apparel, flags, mouse pads, and sportswear, as well as other materials such as mugs and table covers. The unique dye allows the images and text to adhere better to these materials than other forms of ink
• Printing on polyester blends is possible, but because the ink is specifically designed to bond to the synthetic material, using blended t-shirts and other apparel results in the graphics or text taking on a faded or vintage look
• Large-scale printing of a huge variety of substrates is available using our large and giant format presses. With these highly versatile equipment, you can have customized designs as large as 30″ x 40″ with the same quality and appeal as the small graphics added onto t-shirts, bags, and more
• The dye used for the actual printing process is made from pigments suspended in water. This ink is used to create the image in reverse on a poly-coated material. This material then transfers the image using pressure and heat. Through this unique process the dye becomes a gas which penetrates the material and actually becomes attached to the inner fibers or structures of the item
• By becoming a solidified part of the item, the dye is completely permanent. Unlike screen printing or other forms of transfers which can peel, wash, or scrape off, the dye-sublimation printed graphics can be used and washed without any damage
• Due to the unique nature of the ink used to the printing, all products must be white. If we attempt the process on any other color material, the ink will not show up. When used on white, however, all of the colors of the ink are extremely vibrant and saturated
• Unlike other forms of dying or transfers, the dye leaves the fabric soft and flexible without causing buildup
• The scale and versatility of the printing method allows us to print images all the way to the very edge of the item for a complete printed effect
• This is an ideal option for small production runs or for items you want to feature high-resolution images or full-color photographs
• It is extremely important that apparel items are very smooth during the printing process because any folds or creases will result in gaps in the finished design

Contact us to find out more about dye-sublimation printing so we can help you to decide if this is the method that is right for your needs.