Best Sublimation Design Software
Sublimation printing uses heat to bond dye with the fabric on a molecular level. You can use this method on everything from t-shirts to mugs. Before you can print out a design, you need software to make or edit the image. Choosing the best sublimation printing software will help you create stellar prints!
The best sublimation printing software includes options like Adobe Photoshop, CorelDraw, Canva, and Amadine. This software provides tools for downloading, editing, mirroring, and printing designs.
What is Sublimation Software?
Sublimation software allows you to create or edit the design you want to apply to a shirt or other item. As with any print, the design process plays a crucial role in the quality of the finished product! For the best designs, you will want to work with good design software.
The quality of the prints does depend on the quality of the design.
Good sublimation software provides intuitive design tools, the ability to make super precise and accurate images, and photo editing software. Design software lets you create or customize unique, professional-looking images or lettering for your prints. Ideally, it also comes at a reasonable price!
Another factor to consider is whether or not the software can offer both raster and vector graphic editing tools. Raster images use thousands of tiny pixels to create images. Most photos use this design method.
Vector graphics use equations instead of a set number of colored dots to make images. The angles and shapes created in this kind of editing will automatically resize and work well for lettering and other images.
Finally, you need your design software to offer ICC profiles. An ICC profile helps create a universal understanding of what colors should look like. It is created by the International Color Consortium.
Why does this matter? The way computer screens and human eyes interpret color can vary a lot! Plus, different printers may mix color shades in different ways. The ICC profile will help you understand the input and output of colors used by your computers and your printers.
Review of: Adobe Photoshop
Use: Design Software
Creators go to solution for design and color correction because it works well.
Affordable
You may need to watch some instruction videos.
Tons of manufacturer and social user support if needed.
We Like
Adobe Photoshop has been around for quite some time. There are a lot of people that use Photoshop. Why? The software gets the job done.
Industry standard, highly advanced photo editing and graphic design software for both desktop and iPad.
We Don’t Like
Bit of a steep learning curve but there are thousands of tutorials on YouTube.
Summary
Adobe Photoshop is a powerful graphics design and photo editing software from Adobe. It can be used for tasks such as removing blemishes or people from photos, adding text or other design elements to an image, and changing the colors or overall look of an image. Photoshop can also be used to create designs that are rich in color and detailed design elements.
Photoshop creates and edits raster file types. Raster files are made up of tiny color squares, called pixels, that make up a highly detailed image. The more pixels a design has, the better and higher quality it will be.
Price: 7-Day Free Trial
$20.99 / month
Review of: Canva
Use: Design Software
Free Design Tool: Presentations, Video, Social Media
We Like
Very user friendly with its easy to use interface.
No graphic design background needed as its self-explanatory.
Can download PNG, JPG, and PDF files for sublimation designs
We Don’t Like
Does not have the advanced editing features when compared to Adobe, CorelDraw, and Affinity.
Web-based, so if you are in an area where the internet is spotty or non-existent, you won’t be able to use it.
Some users have experienced sizing issues with document properties vs actual printed image.
Summary
Canva is an online raster graphic design software that can be used to create your sublimation designs. It includes thousands of templates, images, and fonts that you can use for your design.
They have many templates you can use as your base design including mugs, shirts, sweatshirts, …even a shirt template! Canva also has many elements that you can use that’s included in the free version and there are many more that you can use if you purchase their subscription.
You can also upload your own design elements too. Once you’re done with the design, download it as either PDF, JPG or PNG. Then open that image and send it to your sublimation printer.
Price: 30-Day Free Trial
$12.99 / month
Review of: Amadine
Use: Design Software
Amadine is a vector drawing software with perfectly balanced UI that guarantees smooth workflow and quick learning.
The app is perfect for illustrations, designing websites, user interface, laying out flyers and brochures, creating logos and icons.
Summary
Developed with precision and attention to what users need, Amadine offers everything you may require to bring the craziest illustration ideas to life.
Tools:
- Use more that 30 tools for selecting, drawing, editing, slicing and typing.
- Select and modify objects: Move, Selection, Lasso, Eyedropper, Scissors, Eraser, Zoom.
- Draw and edit paths: Pen, Convert, Draw (combines Pencil and Brush), Width, Gradient, Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, Star, Line, Arc.
- Transform shapes: Free Transform, Symmetrical Distortion, Free Distortion.
- Organize artboards: Sheets.
- Type and edit text: Text (combines text in place and text in box), Text on Path, Text in Shape.
Free Trial
Price For Mac: $29.99
Price For iPad/iPhone: $9.99/year
We’ve been using Photoshop for a long time. Canva has been another great place for inspiration.
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