# Sublimation printing without color profile



## olga1 (May 11, 2014)

A friend of mine bought sublimation ink and she is printing coffee mugs without color profile and everything is coming out perfect. How is that posible ?. Thanks


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

We switched printers a couple of months ago and was too lazy to install reinstall the profile. And our colors come out fine too. If you're dealing with standard colors it shouldn't be an issue. Red is red.


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## olga1 (May 11, 2014)

She have a brand new WF7610


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## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

Sometimes ya just don't need to complicate things eh?


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## bwmccall (Jan 19, 2011)

Standard colors tend to come out fine. If you are doing more complex things like matching school colors, it may take some work to get them just right.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

olga1 said:


> A friend of mine bought sublimation ink and she is printing coffee mugs without color profile and everything is coming out perfect. How is that posible ?. Thanks


Have her sublimate this test photo and see if the colors are still perfect.

http://www.gballard.net/dl/PDI_TargetFolderONLY.zip










You can hit some colors without a profile but if you want the best color possible you need an ICC profile.

EDIT: I added the full image since it was cropped by using the direct link to the photo


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## olga1 (May 11, 2014)

Thank you very much, I will let her know


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## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

It's always best to sow the seeds of doubt, 'cos there are very few who are perfect.
and I ain't one.


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## Signature Series (Jun 11, 2016)

One thing to keep in mind is what is great colors to one person may be very different to another. Example - When we started long ago I was just amazed at the colors we got from Artainium ink . When we moved to wide format and started to use Subli I was surprised at how much better the colors were. Later switching to J-tek we were again amazed at the color improvement.

MGParrish's test will trulu show if you have great colors or could be be improved with a profile. Consider it a blessing if the colors are really close to the sample.

Realizing there is a quote above "red is red" I would suggest the first time a customer says we just want "red" be very careful. Red is by far the most challenged color for dye sub. Not only by the wide range people consider to be "red" but historically it has been one of the colors that is hardest to hit spot on. Typically if you can get a great black and a great red everything else falls into place.


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## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

Agreed but there is no reason to chase nirvana, it doesn't exist. if the process you are using is turning out a very acceptable image, your clients love your work and you can sleep without stressing over_ should_ you really try and change all your settings because someone a world away knows better than you do, but is not your customer, or some overseer of the printing industry? Nah, print until it breaks.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Dekzion said:


> Agreed but there is no reason to chase nirvana, it doesn't exist. if the process you are using is turning out a very acceptable image, your clients love your work and you can sleep without stressing over_ should_ you really try and change all your settings because someone a world away knows better than you do, but is not your customer, or some overseer of the printing industry? Nah, print until it breaks.


But the problem with this thinking is that one customer may be OK, assuming he is the lucky one with colors in his/her design that were able to be reproduced OK, but what happens with the next customer if his colors are not in the reproducible range? 

Without a profile you cannot get the best accuracy overall, customer to customer.

There is a reason all the main sublimation suppliers support inks with profiles, otherwise we can all buy the cheap stuff on Amazon or Ebay without the profiles.


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## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

You'll know when your print looks great, and you'll know when it's broke long before the customer sees it


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## Signature Series (Jun 11, 2016)

mgparrish said:


> But the problem with this thinking is that one customer may be OK, assuming he is the lucky one with colors in his/her design that were able to be reproduced OK, but what happens with the next customer if his colors are not in the reproducible range?
> 
> Without a profile you cannot get the best accuracy overall, customer to customer.
> 
> There is a reason all the main sublimation suppliers support inks with profiles, otherwise we can all buy the cheap stuff on Amazon or Ebay without the profiles.


100% correct.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Dekzion said:


> You'll know when your print looks great, and you'll know when it's broke long before the customer sees it


Yup, and printing without an ICC you will see "broke" more often

Suggest you disable Powerdriver on your Ricoh and print the file I posted straight without color correction. Betcha it's "broke".


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## Signature Series (Jun 11, 2016)

Dekzion said:


> You'll know when your print looks great, and you'll know when it's broke long before the customer sees it


The issue with your opinion is many of the people starting out in dye sub are not graphic designers and really have no clue what is great colors or not thus they cheat themselves and their customers out of professional results.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Signature Series said:


> One thing to keep in mind is what is great colors to one person may be very different to another. Example - When we started long ago I was just amazed at the colors we got from Artainium ink . When we moved to wide format and started to use Subli I was surprised at how much better the colors were. Later switching to J-tek we were again amazed at the color improvement.
> 
> MGParrish's test will trulu show if you have great colors or could be be improved with a profile. Consider it a blessing if the colors are really close to the sample.
> 
> Realizing there is a quote above "red is red" I would suggest the first time a customer says we just want "red" be very careful. Red is by far the most challenged color for dye sub. Not only by the wide range people consider to be "red" but historically it has been one of the colors that is hardest to hit spot on. Typically if you can get a great black and a great red everything else falls into place.


To your point about Red and Black.

The human eye is most sensitive to red, and subtle changes in red. It's the reason stop signs, stop lights, fire trucks etc are all red.

Black is challenge too because with unless you have a RIP and print in CMYK then your source image, while it may appear to be full saturated black, it may only be 97% for example. In that case then you are not using "K" for black but rather a composite black made from a mix of the other colors. So you end up with perhaps a brown or dark navy tint to the black. Only when the source image (assuming RGB) is 100% K then you actually use the K ink.

In CMYK (RIP or Postscript required) you can achieve good grayscale simply because "K" is used even for gray colors, it's just a less saturated "K".

Of course even "K" can be bad depending on inks. For example Artainium "K" we used to joke about being "eggplant black" since it had a purplish tint.

In flesh tones it's difficult to achieve good colors across a wide variety of portraits without the linearization achieved by an ICC profile.


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## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

mgparrish said:


> Yup, and printing without an ICC you will see "broke" more often
> 
> Suggest you disable Powerdriver on your Ricoh and print the file I posted straight without color correction. Betcha it's "broke".


AAW go on then,, I'll print it off tomorrow.


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## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

Okay,,,
Yer Tiz then.
I printed the one on the left (bottom on tile) with the powerdriver set to, ceramic, trupix paper, 5%saturation, photo, not mirrored.
On the right (top image on tile) was a straight default print through the Ricoh which turned out to be settings of 600dpi (others were available) and inkjet paper (others like plain paper and envelopes etc were available in there too).
Which kinda proves my point, Yes there is an overlay of an orange hue right from the start with default ricoh and if I had the spare substrates to try repeatedly I would make some adjustments in paper etc and could probably get it better. And or knowing what it has a tendency to do would make corrections to the image like I have to to get my laser to print a particular shade of green.
That effect is the default but as everyone can probably agree due to their own experience, every brand of printer will produce that image differently and some will be very very close to spot on and better than the Ricoh default. so who's to say that a particular epson running a particular ink hasn't got it right.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Dekzion said:


> Okay,,,
> Yer Tiz then.
> I printed the one on the left (bottom on tile) with the powerdriver set to, ceramic, trupix paper, 5%saturation, photo, not mirrored.
> On the right (top image on tile) was a straight default print through the Ricoh which turned out to be settings of 600dpi (others were available) and inkjet paper (others like plain paper and envelopes etc were available in there too).
> ...


Dude, it's "broke" without color correction.  That proves your point? No paper adjustment is going to fix that gory output. 

That output without Powerdriver is uglier than zombie porn. 

There is no "orange hue overlay" because the white areas are white in both pics, your inks color saturation range uncorrected are not linear, they are very compressed. Sublimation ink has a narrower gamut than conventional inks, that is why we should use profiles, we need to linearize the range of color. 

No one's Ricoh or Epson is going to sublimate print that photo correctly without an ICC, or Powerdriver which has ICC correction built in. 

Properly designed printers have some _small_ manufacturing variances which might make each and every unit _slightly_ output color different from unit to unit, but not enough for some to have that "magic" printer that could sublimate print color reasonably accurately across a broad range of art or photos without an ICC. 

But your Ricoh does print nicely with color correction.

I rest my case.


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## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

bet you weren't expectin me to print it though eh?


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Dekzion said:


> bet you weren't expectin me to print it though eh?


I did have some doubt that you would post it after printing and pressing.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Dekzion said:


> bet you weren't expectin me to print it though eh?


If you look at the grayscale squares going across at the bottom of the substrates you will notice there is no color tint other than some shade of gray on the Powerdriver version, and you can see the color tints on the uncorrected version and also it "clips" (full compression) at about 70% gray, the 3rd square from the right.

What this means is that you cannot create a 75% grayscale (for example) on the uncorrected version, everything looks black. Even if you "swatched" without an ICC/Powerdriver then you still have a fully saturated black and not 75%, you simply can't achieve that shade of gray before you "hit the wall".

On RGB printers in RGB workspace anything above 0% and less than 100% black are created with CMY inks, so the color tints on the gray squares seen on the uncorrected version means all colors are not linear. The rest of the color elements on the picture of the uncorrected picture will be off accordingly. For example the sunburns on the babies.

There is some compression on the gray scales on the Powerdriver version, I would be curious to see if anyone is using Conde's Ricoh ICC and not Powerdriver if those are improved.


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## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

It'll be a bit of a booger trying to get someone else to print it off too, 
the image wasn't done real justice, it was reduced to a 6x4 and the camera was a handheld compact just for the attempt at the trial. it looks a lot better in real life and a zombie would love it.


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## mgparrish (Jul 9, 2005)

Dekzion said:


> It'll be a bit of a booger trying to get someone else to print it off too,
> the image wasn't done real justice, it was reduced to a 6x4 and the camera was a handheld compact just for the attempt at the trial. it looks a lot better in real life and a zombie would love it.


I figured the Power Driver version looked a little better, but your photo does show the 2 compared side to side, but we have a good comparison apples to apples (or zombie to zombie).


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## Dekzion (May 18, 2015)

Excellent Mike! thanks for the late day giggle.
I heard a saying yesterday that I thought I might adopt,, (do you call the precocious pathetic spoilt little kids 'snowflakes' in the USA like we do?) anyway,,

"dont worry snowflake, when the apocalypse hits, we'll save you,, FOR LATER!!"


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## RVP (Dec 19, 2007)

OMG!!! I was looking for something like that yesterday!! Thinking I had to make my own. Just bought a Epson 7610 and full set of Cobra refillable sublimation ink and cartrdges. 

Also there are many not using a profile. Someone posted on a FB page last week showing all 6 of there Epson WF 7610's printing all day and not using the ink dealer profile. I mayself plan on using the ink dealers profile.


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## RVP (Dec 19, 2007)

mgparrish said:


> Dude, it's "broke" without color correction.  That proves your point? No paper adjustment is going to fix that gory output.
> 
> That output without Powerdriver is uglier than zombie porn.
> 
> ...



Point taken!! You won't know until you use a proof life this. Good info.


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## rossdv8 (Dec 21, 2012)

With a little tweaking, you can often get away with sublimation prints of photographs using no ICC profile, mainly because many people don;t know or remember how the original scene looked, or even the 'real' tone of a person's skin in the light conditions at the time.

But trying it with a well known LOGO can be a lost cause. As someone pointed out. Reds and Blacks are particularly noticeable. I have been printing sublimation photographic images for many, many years - mainly because I do not use Mac or Windows. I often print directly from Linux or Android to a Brother printer using Epson inks. But I got away with printing with no ICC profile because I only print photos.

However, I have seen the difference when one of my photos is printed using quality ink, quality substrate and an ICC profile - and it is 'spectacular', compared to my 'good' or 'acceptable..


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