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Want to learn about sublimation?
We have all seen those mugs with pictures of kids or animals along with a personalised message dedicated to a special event.
Maybe it is the humorous ones that have caught your eye and left you wondering how they do that.
Well, the answer is relatively simple, to be honest, it’s called SUBLIMATION.
A computer, printer and a heat press along with special paper and ink will be the required tools.
On paper that looks as easy as can be but to be fair while it is easy to get started you do need a bit of knowledge and cash to get you on the way.
The cash, unfortunately, will have to come from your own pocket but the knowledge we can help you with.
When we talk of knowledge, don’t worry that you are going to have to sit through courses or never-ending tutorials, sublimation is quite easy to master and the learning curve is not that great.
Here on this site, we will give you a basic understanding of the sublimation process and hopefully it will allow you to start churning out printed mugs by the dozen.
Well maybe not by the dozen but at least you should be confident enough to start creating mugs or t-shirts, if that is your choice, on your own.
What is Sublimation?
Sublimation is the term given to the process of a solid turning into a gas due to a chemical reaction.
Normal printing sees the solid (ink) turn into a liquid state before becoming a gas, which means that attempting to print onto a solid surface such as a ceramic mug would be useless due to the ink being liquid and not being able to adhere properly.
Sublimation printing is not just for ceramic surfaces, it can also be used on fabric, mouse mats, phone cases and coasters.
What is needed to Sublimate?
Ideally, a desktop PC or laptop but a tablet or even a mobile phone could be used, although using either a tablet or phone would most likely be rather restrictive due to the available graphics apps not being as powerful as a PC’s.
A printer specifically designed for sublimation is the ideal solution although certain brands of printer can accept sublimation ink cartridges.
A heat press, you can purchase a stand-alone mug heat press or a combination setup consisting of a t-shirt press, hat press, plate press and a mug press. The pros and cons of each are discussed in the beginners’ section.
A special type of paper called sublimation paper as you may have guessed is required for getting your designs from PC to mug.
A decent graphics program is also highly recommended and surprisingly this is the one area of sublimation that comes at no cost.
Ideally, Adobe Photoshop would be the graphics program of choice but unfortunately, it is rather expensive so with that in mind the suggestion would be to look at open-source software such as Gimp. It must be said that great as Gimp is there is a bit of a learning curve involved in using it.
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