Need Help Color matching sublimated fabrics to dyed material for sport jerseys

[Matt Johnson PA]

Good afternoon, Im looking for some help with Color-Matching fabrics, specifically a sublimated material to a dyed piece of fabric.
We produce sport uniforms and most styles have both dyed fabric and sublimated fabric right next to each other on a sport jersey.

For example; The "body" piece of a jersey that is a dark green dyed cloth (87% Nylon 13%spandex) with sleeves (100% polyester) sublimated dark green.

I need these two fabrics to match in color. The process we use now can sometimes take a while to find a match. Continuing with the previous example. The process start print out a color grid of dark green at different values, sublimate it onto the fabric we are using for the sleeves. Then take that color grid and compare it next to the dyed fabric, under CWF 4150K lighting . Based on that comparison we would make a decision on which direction to go with our cmyk values, in efforts to get a closer match to the dyed material. Sometimes we need to repeat this process just a few times and sometimes 5-10 times or until we, using just our eyes, feel like we have a match.

Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated, feel free to spit ball some ideas as well if you'd like!

Any question, dont hesitate at all to ask, thanks in advance!

Dye Sublimation Printer
-Mutoh RJ900x
Sublimation Transfer Ink
Kian Digistar Hi-Pro
Transfer Paper
-JetCol HTR4000 for transfers pressed onto sublimation twill.
-PyroTrans "tacky" F-2470 for transfers pressed on various polyester fabrics.

 

[bteifeld]

Some questions, if you wouldn't mind-

1. Do you own a spectrophotometer?
2. Which RIP software do you use?
3. Do you have a properly calibrated and ICC profiled operating environment for your sublimation printing?

 

[Matt Johnson PA]

I dont mind at all !
Yes i do have a spectrophotometer. I use wasatch version 6.8 and yes we have an enclosed room that is temperature controlled that we print our transfers in, store paper etc. Our color profiles are calibrated properly as welll.

 

[bteifeld]

Since you have a good color profile, if you can purchase Colorant L from Chromix,
you can get a corrected device ink build for the spot color you are trying to achieve.
You can use Colorant L to measure the dyed fabric green color, setup Colorant L to
use that as a spot color, feed the profile for your sublimation process to Colorant L,
and it can give you a device ink build that may be better than what your profile will
generate. This process has the potential to eliminate alot of trial and error.

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