Category: Sublimation

New Sawgrass Printers With WiFi, Increased Resolution and Energy Savings

On By Joto PaperIn Equipment, New Products, SublimationLeave a comment

After a two-year development process with Ricoh, Sawgrass has recently launched the SG500 and SG1000.

The new printers are made exclusively for Sawgrass’ award-winning inks: SubliJet UHD, ChromaBlast UHD and EasySubli. What sets Sawgrass apart from other systems is the fact that any Sawgrass printer combined with Sawgrass inks works hand-in-hand to produce the highest quality sublimation printing.

With this level of confidence, the new printers come with a two-year warranty.

Updated Printer Engine and Inks Give Greater Color Control and Deeper Blacks

As the next generation of SubliJet inks, users will notice more vibrant, richer colors as well as deeper blacks. SubliJet UHD, as well as EasySubli, will have a 24 months shelf life from the date of manufacture, at launch. The new printers communicate directly as CMYK vs RGB to give Sawgrass even greater control with color profiling.

Purpose-made Ink and Printers are Efficient and Eco-friendly

The SG500 and SG1000 are more energy efficient and the ink output is appropriate for the job at hand, leading to less waste for both the user and the environment. Sawgrass’ eco-friendly footprint is further enhanced with recyclable packaging and plastics for its new SubliJet UHD cartridges.

G7 Certification Gives Sublimators Confidence in Consistency With Sawgrass

G7 Master Facility certification is the global standard of color profiling, meaning users can expect consistent color from every Sawgrass printer and among substrates. The G7 certification is also a key element in The Sawgrass Network as it provides security in knowing color output will be the same for every Sawgrass user producing finished items.

Adding Value with The Sawgrass Network

The Sawgrass Network has been launched to provide new revenue streams for product decorators worldwide. The three applications that make up The Sawgrass Network are available to all Sawgrass users at no additional cost, adding to the overall value of product decorating with Sawgrass.

 SawgrassOthers*
Ecommerce WebsiteIncluded$950 / year
Design SoftwareIncluded$1,200 / year
Color Management SoftwareIncluded$1,450 / year
Customizable, Royalty-Free DesignsIncluded$360 / year
Training & CertificationIncludedN/A
Lifetime Tech SupportIncludedNA
*Costs are approximate in USD, based on industry standard products

With the latest features and the freedom of WiFi, users will enjoy printing with Sawgrass more than ever.

For more information or order your printer, visit jotoimagingsupplies.com.

What is sublimation? Why would it benefit my business?

On By Joto PaperIn Sublimation2 Comments

I get asked this a lot at trade shows.  They see our impressive sublimation display and want to add it to their business.  But they don’t know what the process is or how it works.

Sublimation is a heat transfer process that transfers special sublimation ink onto 100% polyester materials or polyester coated materials.  The key as you might have guessed is in the sublimation inks.

All you need to start sublimation printing is the following:  A sublimation printer, sublimation inks, heat press, sublimation paper, and a polyester substrate or polyester coated substrate.  These can all be purchased in a single package to make it simpler for new users.

The real definition of sublimation is the process of a solid turning to a gas bypassing the liquid state.  This is exactly what happens in sublimation printing.  A sublimation printer prints the ink on a specially coated paper.  The ink dries and turns into a solid.  When heat and pressure is applied to the sublimation inks on the paper, it quickly turns to gas and is forced into the polyester substrate.  When heat is taken away, the gas becomes trapped in the polyester permanently.

Why would it benefit my business?
With sublimation you can add 1000s of new items to your product offerings.  Sublimation has been around for over 20 years; thus you can source over 1000s of different types of sublimatable blanks that are either made of polyester or are polyester coated.  That alone will attract new customers and allow you to make additional revenue from existing customers.  In addition to new products, the sublimation process prints full color images.  This is huge because a sublimated mug can produce much better gradients and drop shadows than a screen printed mug can.  It’s ideal for photographs!  Also, sublimation has no minimums, it costs the same price to produce one item as it does a hundred items.

Making Your Own Templates for Sublimation or Laser Transfers

On By Joto PaperIn Graphic Design, Hard Surface, Sublimation, Tips and HintsLeave a comment

Templates are excellent tools for imaging onto small items.  They guide you on how to resize your image to fit the substrate as well as allow you to see a mock-up of the final imaged product.   In some instances, you can see what parts of the picture is cut-off by holes in the substrate (such as an iPhone cover camera hole).

While most vendors will provide you with templates for your imprintable blanks, not all blank items will have their own template.  So it is useful to know how to make your own templates.

Here’s how to make your own template:

Cylindrical Objects
cylindrical objects such as mugs and water bottles are especially challenging when making your template as the surface is not flat.  But you can always wrap a piece of paper around the surface and mark critical boundaries on the paper.  Once the critical points are marked, you can easily measure out the dimension as the printable area is likely to be a rectangle.

Here’s an example of making a template from a travel mug white patch.

I have marked the corners with a pencil.  Once marked, I can easily connect the crop marks to make a rectangular shape that I can measure with my ruler and input the template size in my graphics software.

Irregular shaped items
Ceramic ornaments with irregular shapes such as a star, heart, snowflake, etc. are items that you cannot measure with your ruler.  However they can easily be traced or scanned in your copier.  One method is to use a pencil and carefully trace the edges of the object.  After tracing is complete, you can scan it into your computer.

It is recommended to use a scanner and not a camera.  Scanners are more accurate because it keeps the sizing of the template consistent, whereas a camera doesn’t do a good job as taking pictures from different distances will change/affect the size of the template.  It’s best to trace your object on paper and then scan it.  Try to avoid placing the object directly on your scanner to scan as ceramic items may scratch the glass on your scanner.  Once scanned use the pen tool or outline trace tool in your graphics design program to make your template.

Here are some examples below.


In this example, I have traced the heart ornament on a piece of paper.


Here is a scan of the iPhone cover with a black background from our scanner.

Tips and hints on making your own templates
Remember when you are finished scanning or measuring your template, make sure to add a bleed border to your template and to consider safe print areas.  This will account for any tiny difference between the size of the substrate and the size of your template.

And finally here is a link to all of Joto’s imprintable blank templates.

www.jotopaper.com (click on the product to get the template)
Unisub blanks templates

Centering Your Image on One or Multiple Small Items

On By Joto PaperIn Graphic Design, Hard Surface, Sublimation, Tips and HintsLeave a comment

Centering your image is easy to do when you are doing a full bleed image.  But what if you are doing an image with just a white background?  It’s difficult to see your image as the substrate or the paper will be blocking the image.

Centering your image on small items such as name tags is quite simple and is similar to bleeding your image on a substrate.  All you need is a border around your image.

Putting a border around your image helps to center the image especially if you plan to have white as your background.  Simply scan in or get the dimensions of your substrate.  Remember when making a border; always make it 0.25-0.50 inches bigger than the actual printing size of the substrate.  This way, you will not accidentally print the border onto your substrate but you will still be able to use it for centering purposes.  Once the border is made, you can center align your image to the border and print!  See picture below.

Here is an example of a name tag (1” x 3”).  I have created a 1.25” x 3.25” border and have centered my image in the middle of the border.   Once printed, simply place the substrate within the borders with roughly equal space between the substrate and the border on all 4 sides.  Then place a blank sheet on top and press.

For items that require the paper to be put on top of substrate, simply tape the substrate onto the paper after alignment and flip over to press.