Aqueous vs. Dye Sub Metal: Round 3 – Profiling and Color Consistency

In working with both dye sublimation aluminum and Allure Aqueous over the last few months, we have found it much simpler to consistently match our digital files to the final output on metal.

Virtually no adjustments have been necessary with aqueous, while the same can’t be said for dye sub.

What does it take to keep color management in control? With Allure, we provide beautiful simple ICC profiles for your printer driver.

We’ll even make a custom ICC profile for your machine, free of charge [ask your salesperson for details].

With driver ICC profiles, color management is just as easy as any photo paper sheet. Install the profile, load the sheet in the printer, and send the print job.

Profiling For Dye Sublimation Workflow

The Dye Sublimation process relies on a much greater number of variables compared to Allure Direct-to-Metal.

Let’s recount what’s involved in Dye Sublimation metal printing:

1. The image is printed onto a transfer paper with special dye sub ink.
2. The transfer paper is put onto special dye sublimation metal and “cooked” in a heat press.
3. The transfer paper is removed and discarded, and we’re left with our metal print.

So what happens when you want to switch to a different transfer paper? What about changing ink suppliers, RIP software, or the print environment where temperature/humidity will be different?

Any changes to the process will require a new media profile to manage your color.

If you’re relying on a manufacturer provided profile, you will be limited to only the combinations they support.

If you handle your own color management, you’ll need to re-profile for every change, costing your company valuable time and material.

Work Efficiently With Aqueous Allure

If you’re using the dye sub workflow to produce metal prints, you’re really locked into a system and if any part of your workflow changes or goes wrong, you’re mostly stuck.

With a change in your workflow, creating a new profile for dye sublimation can be tricky.

Even for us, if we want to set up a correct profile, we and the customer would have to be on the same printer, the same dye sub ink, the same RIP, the same transfer paper, the same metal, and similar printing environments with comparable ambient temperature/humidity.

To put it simply, it’s strenuous.

Skip the laborious re-profiling process with dye sub, and work efficiently by printing direct on Aqueous Allure, using your normal printer and OEM inks.

1. Load an Allure sheet
2. Print away

It’s that easy.

Up Next

Stay tuned for Round 4 of this series, we’ll be revealing yet another interesting finding in our aqueous vs. dye sub investigation.

Don’t want to miss it? Just opt in to our blog mailing list and you’ll get a friendly email when Round 4 has been released.