Behind The Scenes Of: The Best Sublimation Inks for Epson Printers Post

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About the Sublimation Ink Comparison

Let’s Get Started

This project has been a labor of love. What I thought was going to be really easy turned into almost a four-month project.

In January/February I reached out to all of the companies and told them that I was putting together a comparison post of the best Sublimation Inks and asked if they would be interested in sending me their products. Some responded and some didn’t. I disclosed in the chart what I received from each company in the sublimation ink comparison post.

I knew this project was going to be really expensive, so I chose to reach out to the companies first. The comparison blog post is not sponsored, these are all my opinions, and I have not received any compensation for these opinions. It is really important that I say that because they the more I blog, the more I realize that is not always the case in the blogging world.

This blog uses affiliate links to offset operating expenses. Simply put, if you purchase products using my links, Sublimation Studies earns a small commission for your purchase. These commissions go into funding further projects/tutorials for Sublimation Studies and in no way impacts the outcome of my reviews, comparisons, and recommendations. Don’t worry, I still work full-time in my shop, this is just a hobby!

Supplies Used

After reaching out to all of the companies, I purchased the ink from those that were unable to send any. Next, I bought an Epson 7720 for this project. I use an Epson Artisan 1430(now discontinued) in my workshop and I didn’t want to run that many head cleanings on it. I bought 2 packs of 8.5×14″ (legal) and 11×17″ Tex-Print Paper designed specifically Epson printers. Lastly, I went to the fabric store and went on the hunt for the best 100% polyester fabric for the project. It was important that it was as thick as possible and the purest white.

My ink started arriving and I started printing! I printed in the order that the ink arrived and that is the same order that I listed the items in the post.

Time to Start Printing!

So I set up my printer with regular Epson Ink as I outline here. Then I put in cleaning cartridges.

I am going to digress for a moment and say that cleaning cartridges are the best thing I have purchased in a long time. I bought some from Cobra with my ink order and InkOwl also sent me some. I highly recommend both!

After I put in the cleaning cartridges, I did multiple head cleanings and printed a nozzle check every time until the nozzle check came back blank, meaning that all of the previous ink had been flushed out. It took me 4 heading cleanings. So if you are trying to flush old ink out in an Epson 7720, do at least 4 head cleanings. I did 5 for good measure.

After cleaning the printer of genuine Epson ink, I placed my first sublimation ink in and started running head cleanings to flush out the cleaning cartridges. Once I had a clean nozzle check, I printed all of my test prints. Which was 11 pages on legal sized paper and 4 pages on 11×17″.

Check the colors

I immediately printed and pressed a color chart to make sure the colors were skewing right and that one color wasn’t failing to printing correctly. If a color range wasn’t printing right I would run a nozzle check and diagnose the problem. Once the colors were right, I would print the rest of the pages.

With the exception of the color chart, I will press the rest of the prints later. All of the prints were pressed onto the same fabric, using the industry standard of 400 degrees for 60 seconds. Once the printouts were complete, I would put the cleaning carts in and run 2 head cleanings, put in the new ink, then run 4 cleanings or until I had a clean nozzle check. Once I had a clean nozzle check I would print my test prints and repeat. All was great until on my third ink in, the printer wouldn’t do anything and was giving me an error code. Welp.

A Little Hiccup

I called Epson support, told them the error code, and they said we will send you a replacement. It was really that easy. Until I realized I had to return the other one back and they come in a massive sized box that weighs an over 50 pounds. I struggled a little but the printer made its way back to the FedEx Store to be returned(they wouldn’t pick up at the house.)

A week later the new one arrived. Yay! Except it didn’t work and off it went to be replaced again! So after a couple of weeks, I am back up and running and started over again from the first ink. I wanted all the inks to be printed on the same printer so the only variable was the ink.

Pressing the Test Prints

Once I printed all of the test prints, it was time to press them! So I went ahead and cut up all the strips from the color swatches so I could press them all at once. I had a couple of issues with some of the colors so I reached out to those companies, just as any customer would.

First, I wanted to test those companies customer service and secondly because I wanted to make sure there wasn’t any user error on my end. As a business owner myself, it was important for me to give those companies an opportunity to fix the issues before I published the post. For the most part, they all were able to help me troubleshoot a couple of issues!

Accuracy of Colors

Once I got the colors to what I thought was accurate, I calibrated my computer screen with a Colormunki device so that I could be sure that my screen colors were accurately displaying.

At this point, I think my eyes were going cross with seeing the same images over and over again. I recruited my Fiance as an extra pair of eyes. Then we used my Pantone color book specifically designed for CMYK printers to compare the color accuracy for the swatches. We rated them based on accuracy to the color swatch of the Pantone book.

These ratings are not scientific, it was all based on what I was seeing. I also attached pictures for you to also be the judge, please don’t take two random strangers opinion’s on the internet as the end all! Form your own opinions and I would love to hear them in the comments below.

The pictures were harder to judge because I felt it was more opinion based and some portions of the photos were really great and then others would be really bad so I tried to judge overall. For this part, I had to use my laptop screen(which had been calibrated) as the most accurate and rate the pictures based off of that.

I originally was planning on rating the pictures on a scale of 1-10 and allowing ties but I changed my mind and I rated the images 1-6, no ties allowed. 6 was the best score and 1 was the worst.

Taking Pictures and Writing the Post

 

Since you made it this far, I’ll tell you, taking pictures, writing and editing was my least favorite part of the project. I want to make sure I present all if the necessary information in the most objective way. I have 87 revisions/drafts of the post and I haven’t even published it yet. It has become extremely time consuming and I’m just anxious to publish the post!

For the swatch pictures, I would take the picture all once and then edit it into the final photo.  I never edited the color tones of any of the photos in the post. These sample pictures were harder to photograph then the swatches because I couldn’t get them all in one photo. I set up my camera on a tripod the same setting with my ring light and would take the picture of each one. Then I brought them into photoshop and turned them into these photos for the post.

 

Conclusion

I have finally written this post and the comparison post. I hope this provided you with a comprehensive review of how I conducted the review, also all the information you need in order for you to have peace of mind with your sublimation ink purchase. If you found this information helpful, and plan on purchasing sublimation ink, I would greatly appreciate if you could use the links in the blog post. As I discussed before, affiliate commissions are what keep the blog running and every little bit helps!