Dye Sublimation, also known as Disperse Dye Heat Transfer Printing, Dye is a digital print method used predominantly with polyester material in which the disperse dye ink is dyed into the fabric.
Compared to Vinyl Flex Heat Transfers, Transfer Paper Heat Transfers, Plastisol Heat Transfers, Dye Sublimation has the best print quality and durability. The print result is very similar to that of Discharge Screen Printing. It is the preferred decoration method for polyester sports uniforms especially cycling jumpsuits.
The advantages of Dye Sublimation is that because the dye actually sublimates into the fibres of the clothing, dye sublimation has no hand. It has excellent stretchability on fabrics such as spandex. It also has no limitations on the number of colours in a design and the ability to do one-off prints - it also has the advantage over those two print methods of not leaving any polymer behind on the t-shirt.
The disadvantage of dye sublimation is that it cannot be applied to such as cotton. There are treatments that can be applied to the cotton to transfer a dye sublimated image to the cotton, but that is a simulated effect more than it is true sublimation. It's other significant disadvantage is the inability to decorate dark colored fabrics.
The dye sublimation transfers are applied with a heat press. It can also be used to apply graphics to non-fabric items such as tiles and metal.
