# Epson 4880 Colour problems, Sublijet 8 ink dye sub



## Almighty Tubsta (Apr 14, 2009)

Okay, where to start. I have been doing dye sub for a little over a year, never getting great results first time. Both the printer vendor and Sawgrass have been of little help to me. After a lot of tweaking and testing, most of our products are sellable.

I am using an Epson 4880 with Sublijet IQ 8 colour printing, truepix paper and Photoshop CS3 on a variety of materials including: ceramic mugs, polyester t-shirts, foam mousemats and unisub coasters, placemats etc. It is not my company, and cannot change ink/setup, and unfortunately the proper research was not done beforehand. 

The major problem is the reds coming out an orange colour (common problem i know). I have tried both CMYK and RGB working spaces and am currently using Adobe RGB (1998). I have also tried adjusting the colours manually, to little avail.

I'm pretty sure its not the printer, as it was taken back to the supplier for testing. The tests came out fine with their setup, but with our ink and printer, leading me to believe it is our photoshop settings somewhere.

Any assistance or suggestions would be welcome, as I am pulling my bloody hair out.

Yours hopefully,

Tub


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## PositiveDave (Dec 1, 2008)

Using AdobeRGB1998 as your working profile, what are you using as an output profile?
Are you relying on the Epson driver colour management?
I assume you are English because you can spell.


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## BGSSUB (Oct 17, 2008)

Have you downloaded the ColorSure Palette for the Sublijet inks? Once you have those color palettes (standard and XG) you should be able to press sample swatches to get your color matches for all the substrates you will be using ... I have them printed on white aluminum, FRP, white poly, ash poly, colored poly (terra cotta, blue, november white, etc.), ceramic, hardboard, etc. I

Things will look totally wrong on the screen, on the transfer paper and then when put to heat and pressure will be good ... just trust your printed pallette swatches ... or mostly trust them ...!


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## Almighty Tubsta (Apr 14, 2009)

I am using Powerdriver XG-8 4880, with PS rendering intent perceptual and 'printer manages colour' (as the supplier & Sawgrass insisted). Not sure on the output profile though.

I haven't got the ColorSure pallette, didn't even know about it to be honest, but I'm not sure how much that will help as most of what we print are photographs.

And yes, I am English.


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## BGSSUB (Oct 17, 2008)

There should be ColorSure pallette downloads on the Sawgrass site ... this will be your color manager. I use CorelDraw/Paint so I'm not sure exactly how the pallettes work in Adobe products, but there should be adaptations in that output color managing system to help you with your photographic sublimation.


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## Almighty Tubsta (Apr 14, 2009)

ColorSure did not do me any favours really, everytime i print with it ticked in Powerdriver, it prints a sort of speckled effect with lots of mixed colour pixels.

I think i've stumbled across something though (can't believe I hadn't already), there is a button in the Powerdriver to adjust input profile which was set to Sawgrass default so it is now matched up.

I'll post how this goes.


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## Riderz Ready (Sep 18, 2008)

Welcome to world of dye sublimation. The two most difficult colors to hit are red and black. We have competitors that have been around twice as long as we have and still have horrible reds and blacks. The first thing you have to get past is the fact that the standard RGB values do not equate to dye sublimation. As you have found out 255, 0, 0 will in fact in most cases have an orange tint to it. For us a true red is 190, 0, 0. The only way to dial in colors to print color swatches and disregard standard RGB values and totally disregard the colors you see on the screen. The only color values that matter is the ones that print on the substrate correectly.


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## PositiveDave (Dec 1, 2008)

You can always get a profile done for your set-up...


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## People Print (Jan 31, 2010)

To save you a lot of time and frustration. Create and Print your own color swatch. Write down and use the same output setting. Always be sure the print heads are clear and unclogged.

Good Luck to you,
People Print
[email protected]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc3Un1WgjrA


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