Wide and Grand Format Media
The probable cause of tigerstripes, rivering, meandering, arching or zebrastripes
Below some thoughts on how the defect is generated and how to prevent it.
One remark: The stripes can also occur when the printed paper is transferred onto textile that is very close (because it is coated on one side or it is a sandwich with a non permeable foil). In that case, the vapors from dyestuff and moisture also have to find a way out. When that is the situation it is even more necessary to work with thoroughly dry paper (see also point 6.)
With the above in mind, the things you can do to prevent striping are:
Paper cockling happens when too much water is absorbed in the paper. The water causes the paper to form wrinkles, waves or row(s) of hump back bridges. If extensive enough, it can cause the print head to touch it or even rip it apart. Paper cockling is one of the highest reported causes of waste and lost revenue in dye sublimation transfer printing today!
Below some thoughts on how this might be happening.
Here are things you can do to prevent or resolve this issue:
The probable cause of this is related to ink lay down, paper moisture and environmental working conditions
Several issues maybe be happening to not allow the ink to thoroughly dry before transfer.
With the above in mind, the things you can do to prevent or resolve this issue are:
There are several manufacturers of disperse dye sublimation inks. They all work on any piezo based printers such as Epson, Mimaki, Mutoh and Roland.
The below list represents some of the manufactures:
Please contact your printer manufacturer for additional support.
RIP is short for Raster Imaging Process. This process "translates" the information being sent by the computer into a file format that a printer can recognizes. Pre-press departments should have someone who is trained for trouble-shooting problem files. Most RIP errors/problems are traced back to their original file.
The following are suggestions for you to consider if you are having issues with your RIP:
All of these above issues are time consuming problems to fix after the fact and can cause weird and unpredictable results. Clean, concise basic file data is always the best way to start. Educating clients and staff about proper file set-up procedures can go a along way towards saving you time, frustration and energy.
The term profiling refers to the creation of an ICC (international color consortium) color printer file that is calibrated to your ink, paper, printer and RIP (raster imaging process) software.
To obtain consistent accurate colors from any dye sublimation ink, paper, printer and software, some form of color correction must be used. Basically, this ICC profile is a custom designed file that is created and loaded into your computer and used by major graphics programs like Corel and Photoshop during the printing of your image. It tells the printer how much ink lay down and in what amounts of CMYK ink in necessary to achieve the desired print quality.
Profiling is a major part of the entire process of printing what you see on your monitor to your substrate. Every time you change one component, ink, paper, printer or software, you will need to create a new ICC profile. It is not easy to profile and some combinations of paper, ink, printer and software can be rather difficult. For example, profiling water-based inks is much more difficult (tighter printing window) than solvent/oil based inks. Some companies providing you the sublimation paper or inks may have a basic ICC profile available for use but you still will need to make corrections for paper, printer and software. On a positive note, there are specific profiling companies that can help you if you are not sure about how to do this. Make no mistake about it, the creation of this ICC profile will make or break the printed image. Good rule of thumb is if the image is printed poorly and you think it is the paper, ink, printer or software, focus your initial troubleshooting on the ICC profile first and go from there.