Dye Sublimation

The Process of Sublimation

We first start by creating a design in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. We print the design in high resolution using a chemically-formulated gel ink onto special high-release paper that was designed for sublimation. This full-color design gets pressed on your product using an industrial heat press at high temperature (around 400 degrees) for anywhere between 45 seconds and 12 minutes, depending on the material. 

Sublimation requires a polyester-based material, or materials we acquire that have a special-purpose polyester coating that allows the Dye Ink to be absorbes into the pores of the material. Sublimation does not use white ink, so this process is limited to putting images on light-colored material. 

Applications of Dye Sublimation

Using Dye Sublimation, we can put high-quality images on a very wide variety of apparel, gifts, awards, promotional products, signage, recognition pieces, tile murals and much, much more. Take a look at the products within our "Full-Color Imaging" product category to see the exact application.

Here are some of the types of materials that we can image using Dye Sublimation:

• Apparel
• Aluminum 
• Ceramic Tiles
• Ceramic Mugs
• Glass
• Acrylic
• Plaques
• Hardboard
• Porcelain