# Can i use my printer for dye sublimation printing???



## Heyuekai

Hi everyone,

I've recently decided to get into the printing business and am a bit lost. I currently have a standard brother ink jet printer and am wondering if it is a suitable printer to use for dye sublimation printing. I've done some digging around on the forums but can't seem to find a conclusive answer. Any help would be much appreciated.

The current printer I have is the MFC-J430W. 

Thanks in advance 

Kevin


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## coastalbusiness

If you want to stick with the Sawgrass sublimation inks (which I would suggest), you would need to purchase either an Epson or Ricoh, but only specific models of these are sublimation-compatible. There are a variety of models to choose from, depending on the size of print you'll need. I think the Ricoh printers work best for small-format sublimation - check out the SG3110dn or GX e7700n. The Ricohs have less clogging, larger cartridges and an easy-to-use PowerDriver for color correction.


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## mgparrish

Heyuekai said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> I've recently decided to get into the printing business and am a bit lost. I currently have a standard brother ink jet printer and am wondering if it is a suitable printer to use for dye sublimation printing. I've done some digging around on the forums but can't seem to find a conclusive answer. Any help would be much appreciated.
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Kevin


See your PM inbox ....


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## pisquee

Yes, Brother inkjets can be used for sublimation, along with Epsons and Ricohs with suitable refillable cartridges and good quality sublimation ink. You don't have to stick with Sawgrass and their overpriced inks and limited range of printers, despite what their dealers may say.


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## mgparrish

pisquee said:


> Yes, Brother inkjets can be used for sublimation, along with Epsons and Ricohs with suitable refillable cartridges and good quality sublimation ink. You don't have to stick with Sawgrass and their overpriced inks and limited range of printers, despite what their dealers may say.


You folks on the other side of the "pond" got a head start on the Brother for sublimation, we are just now just catching up, that is ... those here in the evil "underground".


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## pisquee

I think the evil moniker is definitely those running things on the other side of the fence


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## mgparrish

Heyuekai said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> I've recently decided to get into the printing business and am a bit lost. I currently have a standard brother ink jet printer and am wondering if it is a suitable printer to use for dye sublimation printing. I've done some digging around on the forums but can't seem to find a conclusive answer. Any help would be much appreciated.
> 
> The current printer I have is the MFC-J430W.
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Kevin


I tried to PM you to answer your question you had asked (in your PM) but your mailbox is full.


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## Heyuekai

mgparrish said:


> I tried to PM you to answer your question you had asked (in your PM) but your mailbox is full.


i cleaned it up, try again. How do i get more inbox space?


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## rossdv8

For anyone experimenting with a brother inkjet like the 6510DW or similar, and who doesn't have an ICC profile yet to suit their printer.

I've been getting good results by simply using GIMP.

For ordinary photographs:
Adjust Color Balance. I use:
Cyan -15 
Magenta -20 
Yellow -15

If I have people (skin tones) I do that then also in Hue/Saturation I recently had to use for one job. Some others have needed no change or slightly less change.
Saturation:
Red -50
Yellow -80

Now, these are starting points for people that don't have ICC to use.

However, you can get a lot of useful stuff done with just those few changes.

BTW, if you are starting out, go to a store and buy some cheap 100% polyester bed sheets or several metres of cloth. I just cut it down into A4 pieces as I want them. Do test prints on that - it is much cheaper than wasting shirts, as I did for my first 6 prints.

Don;t laugh too much, but I have 4 polyester tees with 2 x A4 prints front and back, then inside and outside. Same image, but different temps, pressures and colour changes. 8 prints per tee! 2 polyester single bed sheets and a pillowcase cost me $8.00. So much easier.

While you are at it, gete some 50/50 poly cotton sheets and compare the difference in colour AND, for that matter, get some cloth in various shades and colours. See what you can and can't print on.

If you have decent ink - expect better results. But if you are using expensive ink, you may as well spend the money on a profile.

In my case I only use LINUX operating system so I am a bit limited when it comes to using ICC profiles.
I use GIMP for photo enhancement work, Inkscape for some vector stuff, Xara Xtreme for Linux for so much now I understand it a bit because it is fast and scales graphics non destructively.

I found oversized see through refillable cartridges for my Brother on ebay. So far I have printed 20 shirts, about 120 mugs, some stubby coolers and mouse mats and perhaps 20 A4 pieces of polyester bed sheet. The ink level gas dropped from above the top of the cartridge, to just lever with the normal top of a normal cartridge.

I often leave my Brother sitting for about 4 or 4 days without printing and have clear nozzle check, but twice in the last 2 months I had clogged nozzles during a print. Just ran the menu nozzle clean and all was well again. Longest I have left it is 9 days, and nozzle check was ok.

I buy A3 BROTHER Matte photo paper from Officeworks for sublimation. Check the sublimated A3 tees in the link below. The non sub stuff is on JetPro SofStretch, done with another Brother J6510dw and standard brother ink that came with the printers.

I bought special High release Sub paper and use that and also celcast matte photo paper for mugs.

I use ordinary sticky tape from a 'dollar' shop for mug pressing. I spent money on $15 a roll heat tape, but had already started using $1.50 a roll sticky tape and had no probs where the tape covers the design. I guess it depends on the tape.

Here's an example of my earliest experiments (first 2 weeks ever of learning heat press and sub) with only C-15 M-20 Y-15 changes, with Brother 6510 and cheap ebay ink. 


Whitsunday Wandering Shirts

Hope this helps and gives you some ideas.

Cheers,

RossD

(Sublimaiton Beginner, experimenter, LINUX (only) user).


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## shaian

Great post. 
I am in the middle of looking for a sublmiation set up for the new year. But to not turn down any business for xmas (as I have been the last few weeks) I decided to get a small set up for the next couple of months. I just purchased a brother printer, a3 paper, cartridges, the only thing I need to do now is get some ink. Honestly this side of xmas I dont think i will be able to get high quality inks, so am looking for 100ml alternative brand inks today. From the results and reviews i have seen online the last couple of days, I have been impressed overall. 
Is it ok if I update my progress here with yours? as I may be using your icc info from here too


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## rossdv8

If you haven't done dye sub before there are a couple of things that might be good to know.

I cannot use ICC profiles because I refuse to use Windows or Mac, in fact sometimes I print to my dye sub printer direct from my Android tablet.

But for normal people, you will find it is far, far better to set up with quality ink.

Something that bothered me when I first got my equipment was that dye sub ink was so expensive. Something I learned after about a year, is that dye sub printing done properly somehow uses far less ink than ordinary printing on standard paper with original inks. Go figure.

So don't be turned to cheap ink just because it is cheap. There are lots of people here that can help you get the most out of dye sub (Paul and pisquee among others) if you are using good quality ink and paper.

Most of all, explore the forums here! There's so much help and advice if you ask nicely and offer thanks for good advice  Chances are if you have a problem, someone else has already seen it..

p.s. shaian - I LOVE my Brother printer..

Post number #16 , near the bottom on this page 
http://www.dyesubforum.co.uk/vbforum/showthread.php?8208-Sublimation-Canvas/page2&highlight=canvas
will show the original image compared to a sublimation print on canvas from the A3 Brother with cheap inks and no profile..
You should get way better results than this if you use good ink and an ICC profile.


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## chrisdeesprints

list the ink that is best for sublimation and heat transfers.
I have an Epson stylus 7010 & ricoh 3110


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## rossdv8

Not sure if I am any use here cos I got sucked into cheap sub ink. But I guess you are using the Ricoh for dye sub work and the Epson for heat transfer.

What would be wrong with using Sawgrass sublimation ink for the Ricoh?

My experience with ordinary heat transfer is that all ink works, but non-genuine (cheap ebay) pigment ink for Epson clogs nozzles. I am going back to quality ink when I run out. And using JetProSS for ordinary (non sub) transfers.


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## Cereus Graphics

If it is of superior quality then nothing can stop or interrupt you to use your own printer for dye sublimation printing.


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## Willuknight

Is there a list of what models of Brother printers work with dye sub dye?


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## lanpartyjoe

I found ink here:
Ciss continuous ink system refills for Brother MFC-J430W printers | City Ink Express

Does the printer need flushed before using sublimation inks after using standard ink? I can't really find any information on flushing or what is needed to do it.


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## mgparrish

lanpartyjoe said:


> I found ink here:
> Ciss continuous ink system refills for Brother MFC-J430W printers | City Ink Express
> 
> Does the printer need flushed before using sublimation inks after using standard ink? I can't really find any information on flushing or what is needed to do it.


If you bought the printer new and didn't install the OEM carts then you would not need to flush.

If you change from regular printing inks and then later added sub inks those old inks would need to be flushed out.

I believe there is a "power clean" or similar available in the printer driver to displace your old inks.


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## rossdv8

Willuknight said:


> Is there a list of what models of Brother printers work with dye sub dye?


I don't think you will find a list of smaller Brother printers that work with dye sub, because only Epson and Ricoh are supported by Sawgrass.

But if you look around this forum you'll see that a few of us use them. I did a lot of experimenting with the A3 size MFC-J6510DW, and it is brilliant. I also tried playing with colour and early in this thread I posted the settings that worked for me in GIMP, because I can;t use Windows or Mac, so no ICC profiles.

These days I have set the defaults on my Brother to:
Paper= Plain Normal
Colour Enhancement = ON
Mirror = ON

Red = -20
Green = -20
Blue = +9

and I get perfect colour.

If you use Windows though, try using the ICC Profile for one of the 4 colour Epson desktops and you might be pretty close.

If the colour turns out awful, start with those settings above and play with them a couple of points at a time.

I just did a beautiful sublimated print made from someone's holiday snaps in Japan, onto a ladies poly tee, and another nice clean crisp sublimated print into 100% cotton tee.

The sublimation into cotton is now working great and after more than 100 washes some of them look better than the heat press Iron-All and JetProSS.

I had not used the Brother for 2 weeks, and as usual, did a nozzle check first. Sometimes I need to do a clean after 2 to 4 weeks without being used for sublimation, but often, like today, it is perfect.

I will not be changing from Brother if I can help it. Those super large ebay bulk refillable cartridges are fantastic.

Merry Christmas to members, especially those who helped me sort out the sub on cotton thing.


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## lanpartyjoe

rossdv8 said:


> I don't think you will find a list of smaller Brother printers that work with dye sub, because only Epson and Ricoh are supported by Sawgrass.
> 
> But if you look around this forum you'll see that a few of us use them. I did a lot of experimenting with the A3 size MFC-J6510DW, and it is brilliant. I also tried playing with colour and early in this thread I posted the settings that worked for me in GIMP, because I can;t use Windows or Mac, so no ICC profiles.
> 
> These days I have set the defaults on my Brother to:
> Paper= Plain Normal
> Colour Enhancement = ON
> Mirror = ON
> 
> Red = -20
> Green = -20
> Blue = +9
> 
> and I get perfect colour.
> 
> If you use Windows though, try using the ICC Profile for one of the 4 colour Epson desktops and you might be pretty close.
> 
> If the colour turns out awful, start with those settings above and play with them a couple of points at a time.
> 
> I just did a beautiful sublimated print made from someone's holiday snaps in Japan, onto a ladies poly tee, and another nice clean crisp sublimated print into 100% cotton tee.
> 
> The sublimation into cotton is now working great and after more than 100 washes some of them look better than the heat press Iron-All and JetProSS.
> 
> I had not used the Brother for 2 weeks, and as usual, did a nozzle check first. Sometimes I need to do a clean after 2 to 4 weeks without being used for sublimation, but often, like today, it is perfect.
> 
> I will not be changing from Brother if I can help it. Those super large ebay bulk refillable cartridges are fantastic.
> 
> Merry Christmas to members, especially those who helped me sort out the sub on cotton thing.


Thanks for the information, it is very helpful. I just got in 4 of the large refillable cartridges you mentioned. I was planning on using for standard inks until I decided to go with sublimation. 

Can you use any 4 color sublimation ink such as the for the Epson? It seems so much more readily available than anything else I can find.


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## rossdv8

> Can you use any 4 color sublimation ink such as the for the Epson? It seems so much more readily available than anything else I can find.


I would suggest you stick to inks for 'Epson', and remember some Epson printers use 6 colours, while almost all Brother printers use 4 colours.

Here is one I did over Christmas from somebody's tourist photos. Buddha is one pic, sky is from another photo, and cherry blossoms are from another pic. So to make a memory of their 2009 trip I combined parts from the 3 photos into one scene and pressed it on the lady's shirt. But not while she was wearing it...

If you look at the original art work, and at the shirt you will see I've lost some of the pretty pink from the petals of the blossoms and the blue sky is darker.

That is caused by using Epson bulk ink, in a Brother 6510DW, and not having any ICC profile. Also, the 'sort of cherry blossom colour' I made for the font is not exactly the same on the shirt as it is on the art work.

I can not use profiles because I use a rather unusual setup and in this case I was printing wirelessly from an Android tablet anyway. 

But if you have your computer set to use ICC colour profiles, and there are people here that can create them for you, your shirts should match your originals far better than mine do.

One thing you might find with the Brother is that if you stick to Epson compatible inks, you might not have much in the way of nozzle clogging. The Brother uses the same piezo type print head, but it has mich bigger holes for the ink to flow through.


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## rossdv8

Also made with the Brother 6510. Original pic, and A3 size sublimation into poly-treated 100% cotton after a few washes.

Again, you can see the colours from the Brother are not too bad, but would be far better with a profile. But the Brother does quite a nice job, is A3 capable and best of all cheap and takes those big refillables.


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## djque

rossdv8 said:


> Also made with the Brother 6510. Original pic, and A3 size sublimation into poly-treated 100% cotton after a few washes.
> 
> Again, you can see the colours from the Brother are not too bad, but would be far better with a profile. But the Brother does quite a nice job, is A3 capable and best of all cheap and takes those big refillables.


 is that on a cotton shirt.


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## rossdv8

The one with the boat and the beach is on 100% cotton, but only washed a few times. The one with Buddha is on 100% Polyester.

I live in the tropics, so we wear a lot of cotton, and I find some of my friends prefer sublimated cotton because there is no hand.

Here's a comparison with two shirts I did about January or February 2013. The one on the left is JetProSS that has been worn and washed maybe 25 times. The sunrise one on the right (orangeish with a ship) was done the same day and has been warn and washed two or three times a week most weeks. My shirts are just chucked in with everything else and machine washed, then because we live in the tropics and it rains a lot, they are usually tumble dried.

I do it 'because I can', not because it is commercially practical. 

There are quite a lot of us successfully sublimating into cotton - just most don;t admit it because it creates arguments.

The reality is you CANNOT sublimate 100% cotton without pre-treatment. But the reality is you cannot sublimate a ceramic mug either - without pre-treatment. So my argument is 'what's the difference?'

If I want to sublimate an image onto a ceramic mug, I buy a mug pre-treated with polymer.

If I want to sublimate into a cotton shirt, I saturate the cotton fibres in a polymer, then bake it in. If I do it right, all the cotton is saturated. When I print, the sublimation image goes into the polymer that the cotton is soaked in.

It is not perfect, but it works for me. I've had successes and failures. The cotton thing is a hobby, and it is fun. Even more fun now that the subbed cotton is outlasting the JetPro and IronAll transfers.

Because of the nature of cotton, there will always be loose white fibres on the surface. I have yet to find a perfect polymer treatment - but I'm still working on it.


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## IAMDesigns

Very cool. I am looking to get a brother printer (the one rossdv8 has) and plan to get the refillable catridges. I have a quick question though, how do you get the printer to recognize that the cartridge is full. I have had an Epson printer with a CISS that had a reset button. Is this not a concern for Brother printers or do I need to also invest in something like a chip resetter?

PS. I would also be very interested in know how you go about doing your polymer treatment on cotton rossdv8!


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## rossdv8

Hi IAMDesigns

You won;t see me on the forum much because I do mostly things other than t-shirts. But sometimes I am here. So I saw your post and thought I should answer your question about the Brother printers

This is a long post because it deals with what it is like using the Brother printers over a 4 year period and thousands of prints.

The Brother 6510DW is superseded now. I was running pigment ink through one and Dye Sub ink through another. The Pigment ink dissolved the little sponge that wipes the print head at the start and end of printing and it began leaving black smudges on my A3 prints. Because I do a lot of A3 prints on canvas I got a new Brother and decided to go back to Dye ink for ordinary Heat Transfer (JetPro SS paper) on cotton and for my A3 canvasses. I'd been getting soem bozzle clogging with 3 year olf pigment ink (yeah - I deserved it) So I bought a heap of Dye ink for the new printer and ran soapy water through the old one until all traces of colour were gone from the print. Then I replaced the ink in the old 6510 with dye ink and ran continuous prints until I got a clear print. The Brother compatible Dye ink is MIR from Korea and was about $120 (Aussie) for 4 x 500ml including post. 

Now my old 6510 is the 'work horse' for my A4 daily prints and for my proofing.

The 6510 I use for Dye Sub is another story altogether. It hasn;t missed a beat except that the sticky coating on the rollers sometimes causes mis feeding of the sublimation paper in certain weather. When that happens I place a flat piece of plastic behind the manual feed slot to rest paper on and feed from there.
If I go away for a month or two and don;t print, it sometimes shows a clog on the nozzle pattern print. Just running head clean once fixes it. Otherwise if I print with it once every few weeks it is fine (sometimes I have long times away from printing with health problems).

Ok So the Brother MFC-J6510DW is nor superseded. And the replacement (at the time of writing) Brother MFC-J6520DW uses chipped cartridges. I got a set of refillable cartridges with the auto reset chips and tested them in my new printer.

I could only get the short cartridges at the time, but I see now you can get the long ones. How they work is simple enough once they are in use, but there is one small problem initially. The printer might only let you change the cartridge for a new one when it runs out of ink. So you might be wasting some dye sub ink to do the change over.

So if you can find cheap bulk Dye Sub ink suitable for Epson, buuy some just to do the change over and swap to good quality Dye Sub ink after. Like Sawgrass or whatever is recommended by the successful business members here.

Fill the refillable cartridges with dye sub ink. With the chipped cartridges ONLY refill to about 85% full - DON't fill them completely.

Get some plain A3 paper (it's cheap enough) and start printing full A3 photographs in PHOTO or HIGH or BEST quality with the ink that came with the printer. We want to empty the original cartridges as soon as possible.

When the first warning comes up, replace that cartridge. It will probably be the CYAN. Then keep printing until each of the cartridges runs out. So you will waste dye sub ink until you have replaced all the cartridges. Don;t worry too much about this. from memory there's only enough ink in the new printer to do about 10 x A3 photos. 

A couple of full A3 prints after you have al the Dye Sub cartridges installed and you should be ready to do a test print.

Get a couple of 100% cheap polyester bed sheets and cut off some A4 sized pieces. Start with about 10 A4 pieces of polyester.

Now - A word of warning here. In Linux, the Brother no longer has the option to 'Mirror' the print. So you have to flip the design horizontally in your software. Corel or whatever else you use will have this. I use LibreOffice Draw and you can;t flip text, so you convert text to 'cure' (it's a right click menu thing) and flip that.

Because you are using the Brother, you won;t have an ICC profile yet. So until you can get one made, start with this.

Set your printer for:
Paper = Plain 
Pint Quality = Plain Normal
Mirror Print = ON (if you have it - otherwise see above)
Print Mode = Natural
Enhance = ON
Contrast = +20
Red = -5
Green = -6
Blue = +20

Then print Paul's test print from the DyeSub forum. Or any other test pattern print you have.

All inks are different and you will have to play with the colours one point at a time. Waste ink, sub paper and pieces of polyester sheet until you get it close. Those things are cheap. 
Don;t waste expensive t-shirts. 

Now here's my trick. I do NOT adjust my dye sub printer to match what I see on the screen. I have a printer running normal ink that is used form day to day printing. I set that printer normal for everything except that I tell it to print 'VIVID' and print the test pattern.

Then I compare my piece of polyester with the test pattern to the image printed on the standard printer. I figure the printer companies have spent a lot of money competing to get their printers profiled as well as possible. So if my Dye Sub can almost match the output of a genuine printer with genuine ink - I am doing ok.

Sorry this is so long. But if you decide to use a Brother rather than an Epson, you will need all the hints.

I only use Brother because they are cheap and robust. Disposable if you like  If I was wealthy and less inclined to experiment I would buy Epson and make use of all the ICC profiles available and the expert help.

You will never get as good results with the Brother as you would using an Epson with the right profile and inks.

However, I will take some photos of some recent work using 3 year old Dye Sub ink on a polyester shirt compared with brand new genuine ink on cotton using heat transfer. The lighting won;t show them at their best, but it will show how close it can be.

I'll try to do it today.


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## rossdv8

OK, here's the comparison to show the problem of working without colour profiles, and with 3 year old ink (2 years past use by date).

In the photo on the left the left shirt is just printed dyesub on polyester. 
The right shirt is Jetpro SS printed with OEM dye ink and pressed on polyester. Pic shows result after it was hot washed in a machine and hot tumble dried 4 times (wearing it normally in between).

In the photo on the right, the left shirt is Jetpro SS printed with OEM dye ink and pressed on cotton, again the pic shows result after it was hot washed in a machine and hot tumble dried 4 times (wearing it normally in between).
The right shirt is the same newly dye subbed shirt as the first photo.

You can see the problem with the reds being too orange and a few other small problems like blue. Some is because the ink is 2 years out of date. Some is simply because there is no ICC profile in use.

The blue tint across the white shirts is the reflection of the sky. I took the pics outside in the sun because it is too dark in the workshop. Forgot there are no clouds again today. The flag is in a different position because we are still messing with the layout.

My work is almost all photographic. Not much matching of logos. If you are working with company logos, this will be an issue. You will need to press a sample colour swatch on polyester and choose the colours and replace the colours in your customer's logo with those from your swatch. Easy enough to do in any of the graphic programs.

With the logo on the shirt it is not a problem. It is our resort and it was designed around the brighter colour Anyway. 

It just happens that the DyeSub output matches my screen almost 100%, and the OEM inks solid reds look wrong. That is pure luck for me but could be a problem for you.

Hope this gives you some idea of the problems you will have to deal with if you choose not to use Epson or Ricoh.


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## rossdv8

Here is a comparison between my print output on plain paper using OEM ink on the Brother MFC-J6510DW and the Dye Subbed shirt using another Brother MFC-J6510DW.

The colours are close enough for my work.

Because there is no icc profile being used, there will always be colour problems. But I have seen worse results from people with a profiled system on this forum and on the Dyesub forum.

I have always advised that people should use the 'right' gear and have a profile done. But this just gives those who for whatever reason don't work that way, and idea how it works in reality.

The white border that look like a press mark is actually the piece of A3 paper I put inside my poly shirts to prevent blow through to the back of the shirt. I forgot to take it out :-(


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## rossdv8

And since they were on the 2013 discussion, here is the compariso between the JetproSS on cotton and the DyeSub into treated cotton that I did at the end of 2012.

They were printed within 2 days of each other I think. Possibly even on the same day.

The JetproSS 100% cotton shirt on the left has been hot washed and tumple dried over 100 times in the last few years. 

The DyeSubbed 100% cotton shirt on the right has been hot washed and tuble dried more than 200 times in the same period. I tend to wear it 2 or 3 times a week most weeks.

Just for the people who say you cannot dye sub a 100% cotton shirt.
As always there's my disclaimer. The Micador product I use to treat the shirts is the only one that works. And it is NOT a commercially viable process.

Like printing on 100% polyester with JetproSS, I do it because I can. And so far JetproSS (not the active wear product - just the old standard one) is outlasting JetproSS on cotton in hot washes and hot tumble drying. It actually looks and feels great on polyester but it is a pig to hot peel.


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## mgparrish

rossdv8 said:


> And since they were on the 2013 discussion, here is the compariso between the JetproSS on cotton and the DyeSub into treated cotton that I did at the end of 2012.
> 
> They were printed within 2 days of each other I think. Possibly even on the same day.
> 
> The JetproSS 100% cotton shirt on the left has been hot washed and tumple dried over 100 times in the last few years.
> 
> The DyeSubbed 100% cotton shirt on the right has been hot washed and tuble dried more than 200 times in the same period. I tend to wear it 2 or 3 times a week most weeks.
> 
> Just for the people who say you cannot dye sub a 100% cotton shirt.
> As always there's my disclaimer. The Micador product I use to treat the shirts is the only one that works. And it is NOT a commercially viable process.
> 
> Like printing on 100% polyester with JetproSS, I do it because I can. And so far JetproSS (not the active wear product - just the old standard one) is outlasting JetproSS on cotton in hot washes and hot tumble drying. It actually looks and feels great on polyester but it is a pig to hot peel.


The OEM inks on the Brothers, including the OEM ink on the Brother MFC-J6510DW are _dye_ for the CMY colors and only pigment for the black.

The reason for the color loss with the JPSS paper is the _dye_ inks you used. I use JPSS with 3rd party pigment (all the colors) in my Epson printers and the colors won't fade. 

Also, while you can use JPSS on 100% cotton, a 50/50 is a better option as the shirts have less "piling" and the stretching of 100% cotton t-shirt can show up the weave lines as cracking after washing. More so if someone is wearing the t-shirt tight.

JPSS using pigment inks on a white 50/50 is the real deal. Hot wash and you can even bleach the tshirts.


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## rossdv8

I agree about the dye vs pigment inks. But I also had an Epson running pigment for my photos on canvas and tested it against the Brother running dye ink. The Epson images were dull and lifeless by comparison, buy you are right. They faded less in dorect sun inside glass.

However, you have to remember that I do all wash testing using hot water, hot tumble dry, strong detergent and a bleach. I have never turned a shirt (my own or others) inside out to wash it. And the first wash is always on the first day. None of this waiting 24 hours. I also swim in salt water in the shirts.

So if the poor things are lasting over 100 washes under that abuse I don;t think there's much of a problem for the average wearer. The shirt is usually too dirty looking to wear long before the photo fades.

I also used pigment in one Brother printer, but ended up going back to dye for the same reason I dumped the Eposn. Nozzle clogs. However, Epson has in recent years, done marvelous things with pigment ink. Finer particles among other improvements.

EDIT: I just scrolled up to the comparison photo posted in 2013 when the Jetpro shirt had been washed 25 times. The fading, considering the abuse it has suffered, is not too bad for an extra 100 or so hot washes. I have pigment printed shirts here that have been through the same abuse that are not much better.


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## SRB Screen Print

rossdv8 said:


> I don't think you will find a list of smaller Brother printers that work with dye sub, because only Epson and Ricoh are supported by Sawgrass.
> 
> But if you look around this forum you'll see that a few of us use them. I did a lot of experimenting with the A3 size MFC-J6510DW, and it is brilliant. I also tried playing with colour and early in this thread I posted the settings that worked for me in GIMP, because I can;t use Windows or Mac, so no ICC profiles.
> 
> These days I have set the defaults on my Brother to:
> Paper= Plain Normal
> Colour Enhancement = ON
> Mirror = ON
> 
> Red = -20
> Green = -20
> Blue = +9
> 
> and I get perfect colour.
> 
> If you use Windows though, try using the ICC Profile for one of the 4 colour Epson desktops and you might be pretty close.
> 
> If the colour turns out awful, start with those settings above and play with them a couple of points at a time.
> 
> I just did a beautiful sublimated print made from someone's holiday snaps in Japan, onto a ladies poly tee, and another nice clean crisp sublimated print into 100% cotton tee.
> 
> The sublimation into cotton is now working great and after more than 100 washes some of them look better than the heat press Iron-All and JetProSS.
> 
> I had not used the Brother for 2 weeks, and as usual, did a nozzle check first. Sometimes I need to do a clean after 2 to 4 weeks without being used for sublimation, but often, like today, it is perfect.
> 
> I will not be changing from Brother if I can help it. Those super large ebay bulk refillable cartridges are fantastic.
> 
> Merry Christmas to members, especially those who helped me sort out the sub on cotton thing.



I am just finding this thread and trying to clarify what inks you were using for your Brother printer? Thank you!


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