What Is Sublimation Ink?

Ah, the age old question: just what is sublimation ink? This cause for pondering has haunted man since the dawn of time – well, that’s a tad of an exaggeration, but since the birth of the sublimination printer at least.

Sublimation itself is the act of using both heat and pressure to first convert ink on treated paper to gas, then impress the said image from the paper to the product – this could be on paper, a t-shirt, a mug, plastic, or even metal. The name ‘sublimation’ refers to how the dye goes from a solid state to gas without passing through the liquid state – pretty scientific, huh?

So what are the advantages to this super-snazzy form of printing? The main one is all about the quality of the tone that sublimation printing produces. Traditional inkjet printers can suffer from a process called dithering which means the colour of the dots is limited; sublimation printers on the other hand produce a truer, continuous tone like you’d expect to find on a chemical photograph.

Another advantage is that the printing is dry and ready to handle as soon as it exits the printer. It’s not all great tones and dry hands though as there are some drawbacks: only specially treated paper and materials will accept the ink itself; there is a lot of dye wasted so it’s not the most economical choice; and there is also a risk if you’re printing confidential documents that copies can be found on the waste roll – probably not the best choice for the MI5 then…

If you have any other questions or queries about this amazing ink and its wondrous process, check out our sublimation products page, or shout us (City Ink Express) a holla on social media!