Transfer colors aren't coming out very bright..

[whogirl'smom]

I'm doing some more of my transfers today and it's not printing nearly as vibrant a color on the transfer sheet, as on a regular piece of paper. Why is this? The printer doesn't show that it's running low on any ink color? I'm afraid to do any more after these first two so I don't waste all this dark transfer paper! Help!

 

[Cruiser1969]

I'm doing some more of my transfers today and it's not printing nearly as vibrant a color on the transfer sheet, as on a regular piece of paper. Why is this? The printer doesn't show that it's running low on any ink color? I'm afraid to do any more after these first two so I don't waste all this dark transfer paper! Help!

I find that the colour does look less vibrant on the printed transfer, but it will come out vibrant when the ironing is all done! Give the first one a go and see how it turns out on the shirt!

Anyone else agree with this experience??

 

[dr&momto2boys]

I noticed the same thing with mine, but they do look good on the shirts!

 

[whogirl'smom]

OK, I printed out one for a white t-shirt this morning on light transfer paper and the colors look really bright. The shirt is in the wash right now, so I'll know soon if it transfers bright, too, but it looks like it will. So, I'm wondering if it's the dark transfer paper. I went to Hancock Fabrics yesterday, thinking they might be able to answer my question, and they don't even handle dark transfer paper and didn't know what it was! The girl showed me the kind they have that you print on and then sew on a shirt; I don't even think she understood that these were designs and not photos!

Thanks for your support! If another one comes out faded looking, I'm calling Hobby Lobby in the next town over to get their opinion.

 

[Cruiser1969]

OK, I printed out one for a white t-shirt this morning on light transfer paper and the colors look really bright. The shirt is in the wash right now, so I'll know soon if it transfers bright, too, but it looks like it will. So, I'm wondering if it's the dark transfer paper. I went to Hancock Fabrics yesterday, thinking they might be able to answer my question, and they don't even handle dark transfer paper and didn't know what it was! The girl showed me the kind they have that you print on and then sew on a shirt; I don't even think she understood that these were designs and not photos!

Thanks for your support! If another one comes out faded looking, I'm calling Hobby Lobby in the next town over to get their opinion.

I think it is a dark transfer issue . . . I have used light transfers before and I don't remember the muted colours. Iron a dark transfer design onto a shirt . . . I'm sure you'll see that it comes out bright

 

[whogirl'smom]

Well, I did a dark transfer and it looks terrible! The colors are still muted and faded. I've spent 1 1/2 hours this morning trying different printer settings--I set it on "fine" quality, increased color saturation, changed paper settings. One transfer looks marginally darker, but the color itself in the background is supposed to be cobalt blue, and it's coming out dark, stormy gray/blue. The other that I ironed on a shirt is supposed to be hot pink, and it's a weathered dark pink.

I'm miserable--all these cute designs you have all designed for me are being ruined by my stupid printer!!! By the way, it's a Brother (uses LC-51 ink) photo printer, color printer, fax, copier, scanner. Any suggestions on settings? It did this with both Wilton and June Tailor brand dark transfer papers, which are the only brands I have found around here.

 

[KristineN]

One of the things that is tough to understand, is that sometimes the colors that are displayed on your monitor, won't translate the same way to your printer. The settings on our computer monitors are different than printer settings...this is common with certain blues & greens especially. Some printers are worse with this than others.

 

[Cruiser1969]

Well, I did a dark transfer and it looks terrible! The colors are still muted and faded. I've spent 1 1/2 hours this morning trying different printer settings--I set it on "fine" quality, increased color saturation, changed paper settings. One transfer looks marginally darker, but the color itself in the background is supposed to be cobalt blue, and it's coming out dark, stormy gray/blue. The other that I ironed on a shirt is supposed to be hot pink, and it's a weathered dark pink.

I'm miserable--all these cute designs you have all designed for me are being ruined by my stupid printer!!! By the way, it's a Brother (uses LC-51 ink) photo printer, color printer, fax, copier, scanner. Any suggestions on settings? It did this with both Wilton and June Tailor brand dark transfer papers, which are the only brands I have found around here.

I'm sorry to hear this didn't work out for you! I've always used Avery dark transfers and never had a problem . . . I don't know if your transfers are contributing to the problem as I don't have experience with either brand you mentioned. My printer is a Lexmark, which not the greatest.

 

[aries1980]

Kristen N is correct... Being a graphic design student they just taught us this:

screens, monitors, etc. are in RGB ( red green blue) colors but whenever you print out things it prints in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) so there is def. a difference with that so that can be an issue and the only way to adjust that is to configure your printer with computer screen settings to color match and or find a printer that prints RGB. I hope that helps...

 

[whogirl'smom]

Well, here's a happier update. I did finally figure out how to go into the printer settings in Photo Wizard under properties and brighten the color, increase the contrast and set it for color enhancement. This helped a lot. The printer (when in Photo Wizard) does have adjustments for red, blue and green, but I was afraid to mess with them, for fear it would be like when you mess up the tint on your TV.

I was very happy with shirts I did today with the Mickey UT Vol print by Carolinagirl86--I used dark transfer paper but put it on a white shirt and it is nice and bright. I think the problem with the other two shirts might just be that they are VERY bright pink and it just seems to bleed through the light colors (white, yellow, light pink) and mess up the contrast. The dark brown shirts I did look pretty good and the white ones are great. It's a learning experience that's for sure!

Thank you all for your help and explanations! Only our MNSSHP shirts left to do and stick a fork in me, I'm done!

 

[SkcMom]

Glad to hear they worked out for you!! I am getting nervous about having to do mine soon for our December trip!