Sublimation printing or All-Over printing, the digital printing method uses heat to transfer the design onto the substrate. This is the simple definition of sublimation printing. Right! But for sublimation, it needs so many things to happen. Like printers, paper, ink, substrates and many more small and big things. But many times we forget about the small things and that small things make the difference. And one such thing I thought is the most underrated thing in sublimation printing. What is that? The software. It plays a crucial role in finalising and setting the design. I received a lot of mail regarding that. Like how to select the best software, what are the different software and many more. Today I’ll take you on a tour of sublimation software. So without delay, let’s go!
What is sublimation software?
Sublimation software is any piece of software that can be used for sublimation printing and crafting.
Types of the sublimation software:
There are 3 types of sublimation software available in the market. These are:
- Graphic Designing Software
- Sublimation Printing Software
- Hybrid Software
Now let’s deep dive into the sublimation software.
Graphic Designing Software:
This software allows you to create illustrations, edit images, add effects & put together a finished design to print onto your sublimation printer. In simple words, you can use it to create a new and fresh design for your sublimation printing.
How to select the best designing sublimation software?
Now the question is how to select the right one. Which suits your needs best? Don’t think too much. I’m giving you a list of questions. Just answer those questions honestly and you get the right sublimation software. This is simple. The list of questions is as follows:
- What kind of designs do you want to make?
- Will you be creating more photo-heavy designs that you would need lots of photo-editing features?
- Would you like to create illustrations and text-based designs?
- Do you want built-in templates, or would you rather have professional features?
- What features would you like to have most?
- What’s your overall budget for software?
Yeah! I know you answer all the above questions honestly. But I would like to inform you that there are also 2 types of Graphic Design Software.
Photo Editing Software/ Raster Image Editor:
It helps you to create realistic images/paintings. It provides you with the feature that the designs are made with pixels. So while enlarging or doing settings it didn’t lose its quality. So you can do intricate edits in your photo/design and can add layers of effects or colour adjustments and achieve the style you want. It helps to give your photo a fine-tuned control
Ex. Adobe Photoshop,
Affinity Designer,
GIMP
Pros:
- You create photo-realistic designs
- You can do the detailed edits on photos
Cons:
- It is not suited for digital illustrations.
- You can’t make your designs bigger once made, so you want to create the original design in the biggest size you need and size down from there.
- It is best suited for photographers or people who want to do professional photo edits with advanced filters and features.
Vector Design Software:
It can create vectors or digital shapes made with points and lines that can be resized up and down without losing any of its quality. It is best suited for the illustrations and text and not for hardcore photo editing. But you can include photos in the design.
Ex. Adobe Illustrator,
Affinity Designer
Inkscape
It is best suited for creating illustrations with graphics and text.
Pros:
- It can create creative illustrations that can be resized and reused easily in a digital format.
- It is Great for adding text to designs.
- It is used to create 3D effects.
Cons:
- It is not best suited for editing photos. You have to use a photo editor for that.
- It is the best choice for the crafters. This is the standard choice for the graphic designer.
Sublimation Printing Software:
This software is designed to prepare your images for printing. It gives you options for dpi (dots per inch), paper type, and other settings, plus automatically mirrors your image for sublimation printing. It is used to adjust the print setting and send the file to the printer for printing.
I know you are juggling with the question of how to select the best sublimation printing software for me. Don’t worry! Here’s some good news for you. Here you don’t have a choice to select your printing software. The sublimation printing software comes preloaded on sublimation printers.
Hybrid Software:
It provides you with the hybrid features. This means these are the software that provides you with the features of both types of sublimation software. These are like a combo offer. Purchasing one software with multiple subscriptions.
Ex. Canva
Pixlr
The top sublimation software for creating awesome designs:
Canva:
- It is beginner-friendly.
- It is a browser-based design tool that packs tons of features into one easy-to-use package.
Here are some things I love the most about Canva:
- It provides you with a free plan, and even if you upgrade, it’s affordable
- It stocks thousands of built-in templates that give designs a professional look
- You can use thousands of fonts, shapes, graphics, and even stock photos from the built-in library
- You can upload your own photos, edit them, and add effects
- But You won’t get any advanced vector or photo-editing features with Canva
- You can use it on Browser, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android
This is my first choice and I always use Canva for my sublimation.
- Adobe Illustrator
- Affinity Designer
- Adobe Photoshop
- Affinity Photo
- Procreate
- Inkscape
Cricut Design Space
Almost all software, even the most expensive ones, provides a free trial before you buy. It’s worth trying out each one with the free trial so you can figure out which one works best for you.
Conclusion:
So with that, I hope you got all the clarity about the sublimation software. Just go deep dive into the article. Read each and every line carefully and follow the guidelines. And you get all your questions answered. With that choose your right software wisely and do your sublimation rocks!