Maybe I'm the last schmuck to pick up on this one, but it's new at least in my area and I wonder if any of you have seen this process.
I was introduced to a local fellow whose business is full-color dye-sub printing onto various media using modified Epson large-format printers and a heat-and-vacuum process. Obviously this treatment would not be for every image, but it would be a stunning presentation for some. Nicest part is that images can be displayed unframed (since the media are rigid), which makes for a very clean, contemporary presentation. The aluminum-substrate images are particularly attractive this way because the Al plate is so thin that you don't even notice the edge; the image appears to float above the wall.
The owner has a long history in the offset printing industry, especially in CMYK color management. Although this particular dye-sub process is not new (used in the textile industry for printing onto certain fabrics) his wrinkle has been to introduce precise color management to the process. He has painstakingly profiled the ink and substrate combinations he uses, which evidently no one had thought of doing before. He tells me that he is one of the few around doing this.
The color in images thus printed is mindblowing in its richness and fidelity, far greater than any conventional CMYK printing process. It's continuous-tone and he stays in RGB color spaces (for photographs he works from TIFF's in Adobe RGB.) The bulk of his business is in point-of-sale signage and displays (usually Illustrator or InDesign files converted to PDF's), but he's done a limited amount of work for local photographers and would welcome an expansion of this line of business. He has clients across the US.
The media--aluminum, MDF, masonite, ceramic tile, glass tile, among others--are coated with a white colored dye-receiving layer and then a clear polymer layer atop that. The image is printed onto a special dye-sub paper with the aforementioned Epsons using a customized bulk-feed dye-sub inkset. The resulting paper image (which looks like a drab, underexposed version of the final image) is then wrapped onto the media and put in a press that looks a lot like a dry mount press, and heated to over 400 F under a vacuum for some minutes. The dyes on the paper image sublimate thru the polymer surface coating (which does not interact with the gaseous dye vapors) and onto the white receiving layer, forming the image.
The resulting image is durable and archival (apparently they've been Wilhelm tested) with excellent fade resistance even in the presence of UV. Heat is the only enemy; excessive heat means outgassing and fading. How much heat I'm not sure, but in normal indoor display conditions it's not a factor. Even better, the image can be cleaned with Windex and a soft cloth. There are even phenolic-resin-coated media that can be used as tabletops! (We'll have to negotiate the sale of North American degustation rights now I suppose. )
I've had a lifelong fascination with printing processes (I don't get out much) and, for the right images and client, this printing process could be very unusual and attractive.
Anyone seen this before? I'd give out his URL but his site is basically a static placard so it's next to useless.
