Color Swatches and Palettes for Sublimation

In recent years, sublimation printing technology has seen many improvements. Advances in ink, print head, and paper technologies have made the process of achieving high quality designs with brilliant colors easier than ever. Despite these advancements, there are still many situations where colors must be adjusted to achieve the desired print results. For example, color matching an existing color requires highly accurate color reproduction. One example could be matching an existing company logo. Choosing the correct settings, calibrating the computer monitor, and using a spectrometer to accurately sample colors are all options for getting an accurate color match. However, these tools and options can often be beyond the scope of what many sublimation users are capable of or want to be troubled with.

While utilizing reliable and reputable software, color profiles, high quality sublimation papers, and modern color correction tools are a great starting point, they may not always be enough. Sometimes, only one or a few colors in a design may not print as expected, while the rest of the design colors are rendered perfectly. Whether there are only a few colors in a design that need attention, or if all colors of a design need to be determined before final output, sublimation swatches and color palettes are a quick and easy tool that can be utilized for such a need. Sublimation swatches and color palettes impose minimal additional cost of time or materials and are great options for the job.

Printing and sublimating color palettes are a simple and effective method to pre-determine how the colors of a design will appear when the final design is produced on the sublimated product. There is no extra equipment needed apart from the equipment that is already used to produce sublimated products. The palettes can be considered a “master color key” that can be used for a single sublimation job or be kept handy as a reference tool for repeated sublimation jobs in the future.

Sublimation color palettes can be very broad in spectrum, covering a wide range of colors. If only a range of a single color is needed, then the color palettes can focus specifically on that one required color. The examples below show a standard RGB color palette which exhibits a wide range of colors within the RGB color space. In contrast, the RGB palette on the left is compared to a palette (right) that is focused on one specific color. In this example, a variety of shades of red is the focus.

While these examples show an entire swatch palette, in some cases it is not always necessary to print the entire palette. Printing only a small portion of the entire palette will narrow the focus to only what is needed for the color matching requirements of the design. This can reduce the amount of additional sublimation materials needed for the color palette sample.

If a wider range or spectrum of colors is needed than what a simple RGB swatch palette can offer, printing a ‘full’ RGB palette may be necessary. A full RGB palette will show an entire range of colors that can be produced within the RGB color space. These wide-range palettes will often require multiple larger sheets of sublimation paper and potentially multiple larger pieces of sublimation materials to produce. Printing a full RGB palette is best utilized as a permanent color “key” that is saved and used or referenced many times over a long period of time.

Full RGB palettes are normally displayed in a grid layout. The colors shown will all consist of a value of red (R), green (G), and blue (B). They will often appear as shown in the example below.

The X and Y axis will represent two out of the three colors (R, G, or B) and the third color will often be shown at the top as a single number. This means that all colors in that specific grid/page will possess within them the value of that single color. In this example the values of red (R) are listed along the X axis (left to right). Green values are listed along the Y axis (up and down). All colors in this grid have no blue in them (blue=0).

Navigating the colors of a full RGB palette is simple. To find the R, G, and B color values associated with the chosen red color on the above palette, simply select the desired color swatch within the grid and then follow the color squares out from the chosen color swatch to the edges of the palette up or down, and left or right. Then note the numbers. In the above example, the number found when moving up or down is the red value. The number found when moving right or left is the green value. The blue value is “0”, which is noted at the top of the palette.

We will look at a simple sublimation project that requires a color match for part of the design. In the example project below, the red is not a match for the existing logo design. Notice the red color of the logo appears to be more of a pink hue.