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To clarify what
we mean about inks and systems I mean the different inks available for use
in doing heat transfers with printers. This covers the following
Pigment Inks
In dealing
with general transfers, not sublimation printing, then the industry
recognizes that the use of a pigment ink be used in working with heat
transfers. If you look at my recommendations in printers you will see that
I only have one printer that is not an Epson. The reason is that the HP
Photosmart Pro B9180 Photo Printer Uses Vivera Pigment Inks.
In the past
several years, Epson developed a unique micro-encapsulated technology for
pigment-based inks in which each pigment particle is coated in resin.
In general,
pigment-based inks have greater light fastness, greater resistance to
ozone, and greater resistance to humidity and water than dye-based inks.
In addition, UltraChrome inks deliver outstanding image quality and print
permanence. What needs to be prevented when using heat transfers is the
resistance to water used in the washing process. There are different
combinations of washing that could have an effect on how the transfer last
on an apparel. You should know that if you are producing apparel for
commercial use then you will probably not pre-wash the garment before
delivering it. The only time to wash a garment is for your own use and for
testing. You may in fact find the right way to wash a particular garment
and include those instructions with your garment.
Pigment-based
inks which have excellent longevity characteristics should be primarily
used in conjunction with heat applied specialty papers or applications
such as apparel.
Dye Inks
When getting
into this business as a new person a lot of time we start out with
equipment that we already have. That equipment could in fact be a dye ink
printer. Now dye inks are used almost as a standard in the print photo
industry and they deliver outstanding colors on different types of papers.
But now you are entering a new field and you may find that when you print
your transfers and wash them the colors bleed. Dye inks are really not
color fast on cloth. In fact they are not color fast on photo paper.
The use is to
get the best color gamut not the color fastness on photo paper. This is
the reason pigment inks were invented so you would get colorfastness.
So my
recommendations is to bite the bullet and buy a pigment ink printer such
as the ones I recommended.
Below is a
water test I did with pigment inks and dye inks.
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