Sublimation Paper Versus Copy Paper: Which is Best?

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Let&#;s put sublimation paper versus copy paper to the test today. This may be one of my most requested posts of all time. Does copy paper work for sublimation? Copy paper would be a cheaper alternative as far as paper pricing but does it work as well? Are there any other issues? Let&#;s find out!

Want more information on what sublimation paper works best? I tested a few brands here!

Sublimation Paper Versus Copy Paper

Do you want to watch my tests and get a closer look at the results? You can click play on the video below to see the entire process of my experiments on sublimation paper versus copy paper.

Can&#;t watch the video or miss some of the information? You can also follow along below!

Supplies Used

I&#;m going to use regular copy paper from Sam&#;s Club that I buy in bulk. It does say on the back of the package that it can be used in laser printers. That means it can withstand the heat that I&#;m about to apply to it in order to press the sublimation. You do want something that can withstand the heat, and not burn or singe. I wouldn&#;t get something that doesn&#;t say it&#;s not rated for laser printers or laser copiers.

Sublimation Prints

I&#;m comparing regular copy paper to both Hiipoo sublimation paper, as well as ASub sublimation paper in my Epson EcoTank printer that I&#;ve converted for sublimation. I have Hiipoo sublimation ink installed, and printed the same print on all three papers. The top is copy paper, the middle is Hiipoo sublimation paper, and the bottom is ASub sublimation paper.

Adding to a Shirt

I have a 95% polyester shirt. I pre-pressed it in my heat press and used a lint roller over the entire surface. Then I put my designs in place with the top being copy paper, the middle Hiipoo sublimation paper, and the bottom ASub sublimation paper. Remember that sublimation is best on polyester shirts. You can see more about choosing sublimation shirts here.

I used heat tape to tape everything into place. I&#;m going to add protective paper on the inside as well as the top. Then I&#;ll heat press these all at the same time and at the same temperature to my shirt.

Bleeding of Ink

After I removed the protective paper, I saw that the copy paper bled way more than the other two. That means if I did not put the paper on top, I would have had ink on the top of my heat press. I always use protective paper on top, but a lot of times I reuse my sheets if no ink gets on them. In this case, I would not have been able to if I had used just the copy paper.

Ink Transfer from Papers

Let&#;s take a look first at the amount of ink that was transferred. You can tell that there is more ink left on my copy paper, than on the other two papers. That means that more of the ink transferred out of the Hiipoo and the ASub paper and onto my surface, which is a good thing. The more ink on my shirt, the brighter the image is going to be and the longer-lasting it will be because more ink got into those fibers and bonded. 

Color Comparison

Let&#;s take a closer look at the colors on each of the designs. The copy paper is lighter, especially on some of the colors. I can see a little bit of a difference in person. To me, the orange in the &#;E&#; on the copy paper version is lighter than the &#;E&#; on the Hiipoo, as well as the ASub. For Hiipoo and ASub, I really can&#;t tell the difference.

The main differences in color that I can see are in the oranges, pinks, and darker purples. I would say that with the darker colors, the copy paper gets lighter. If you&#;re having trouble with your colors and you don&#;t feel like they&#;re popping off of your surface, it may be because you&#;re using copy paper instead of sublimation paper.

Sublimation paper versus copy paper: Which would I use?

Now that you&#;ve seen the evidence and the experiment, you can make your own decision. First of all, the copy paper bled more during the heating process, which means you&#;re going to have to use more paper to protect your surface, which can cost more. It might make it just as expensive as sublimation paper at that point.

The other thing I don&#;t like about using copy paper is that not as much ink transferred out. If I&#;m going to print the ink onto the paper, I want as much of that ink as possible to go onto my shirt. I don&#;t want it left on the paper as that is just like throwing it in the trash. I want all of that ink or as much as possible to transfer over into the shirt and become part of the fabric and the fibers.

This shirt was pressed at the same time, and each print was printed using the same settings on my sublimation printer. Everything else was equal and the same, except for the paper I used in each case. Now you can see for yourself what happens when you compare sublimation paper versus copy paper, and which one might be right for your projects! 

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If you want to ensure the brightest, most true-to-life sublimation transfers, your sublimation paper matters! We put three brands of paper to the test, plus tried using regular copy paper and cardstock in this sublimation paper comparison. We figured out which sublimation paper is best&#;and which you should avoid!

Today I wanted to do a quick test of several different brands of sublimation paper. This is a part of my newest series on sublimation printing. You can check out all of the posts in the series here:

So, let&#;s answer the question, &#;what is the best sublimation paper?&#; I ordered three packs of sublimation paper. All three were a medium weight and work with all sublimation printers:

I also had a request to test plain copy paper, so I added that in, along with a smooth white cardstock, because why not?

I tested all five on a piece of polyester fabric (do not use cotton). Remember that sublimation requires polyester or a poly-coating for the sublimation process to work. You&#;ll also need a light-colored material because sublimation ink is transparent.

I&#;ve found having a few yards of polyester fabric is SO helpful when doing sublimation crafting, since what you print is not what you transfer. This gives me the ability to do a test transfer on the fabric before using my more expensive blank/substrate. Highly recommend getting a few yards and using it for practice!

A caveat: I only tested this single color wheel image on a single substrate (polyester fabric) printed with my converted Epson printer. You may have different results with a different image, a different substrate (soft substrates like t-shirts and socks vs. hard substrates like tumblers and cases), or different sublimation printer (I just got a Sawgrass printer so I&#;m interested in seeing if there&#;s a difference!).

Sublimation printing is one of those crafts that can really change depending on these three factors. I suggest you run this same test yourself if you want to figure out which is the best for your particular set-up.

Join our Sublimation Made Simple Facebook group for tips, tricks, support, and resources!

Sublimation Paper Comparison Set Up

I printed the same exact color wheel image on all five types of paper. I printed them all at the same time. All five were fast-drying and I didn&#;t have to wait long to press.

1. Copy paper
2. Smooth cardstock
3. A-Sub sublimation paper
4. Hiipoo sublimation paper
5. TexPrint sublimation paper

Right away, you can see right away that there&#;s a big variance between the printing on these five images. The smooth cardstock fared the worst&#;it&#;s lightest and the most mottled. The copy paper isn&#;t far behind, though I was kind of surprised it printed a bit better than the cardstock. I think the difference in paper weight between the two might matter here.

Then there are the three high-quality sub papers. I was actually really surprised at the difference between these three. I was honestly expecting them to be the same. But you can definitely see the difference&#;the TexPrint is much more bright and vivid than the other two. You can really see it when you compare the individual colors, particularly in the reds.

The next brightest is the Hiipoo, and then A-Sub was well behind that. I&#;ve had the A-Sub recommended to more than any other paper, so I thought that was a bit interesting. I was definitely interested in seeing how they transferred to the scrap of polyester fabric I had.

Sublimation Paper Comparison Results

Not surprisingly, the transfer of each image mirrored the printed images:

1. Copy paper
2. Smooth cardstock
3. A-Sub sublimation paper
4. Hiipoo sublimation paper
5. TexPrint sublimation paper

You can see here that the TextPrint, followed by the Hiipoo, were significantly better than the A-Sub and then the non-sublimation papers.

Here are detailed shots of each, from my favorite to least favorite.

The first is the TexPrint paper. It&#;s nice and even and the tiny writing is the most clear of all of the versions. The color is the brightest and the most vivid, with almost no mottling. Going forward, this will be my go-to sublimation paper:

Next is the Hiipoo sublimation paper. It&#;s bright and even and vivid like the TexPrint, but not quite as saturated in some of the colors. The text is just ever so slightly less easy to read (compare the words &#;ANALOGOUS&#; on both). This is definitely a solid option.

Next is the A-Sub. I expected this one to be as good (or better, since it&#;s the one that&#;s often recommended) so I was a little disappointed to see that it didn&#;t turn out nearly as vivid as the other two sublimation papers. The color is more mottled and uneven.

Then there&#;s the copy paper. I was a little surprised that this wasn&#;t more terrible. I mean, compared to the others, it&#;s not great, but it&#;s also not as bad as I expected. There&#;s definitely less saturation and less definition between colors. Some of the colors (like in the bottom right) are lighter. Because the paper is thinner, I think it soaked up the sublimation ink a little more so the definition was lost.

You also need to be aware that because copy paper is so thin, it really bled onto the butcher paper I was using to protect my press. On the left is the paper I used for all four of the other transfers, and on the right is the copy paper transfer. This is something to definitely be aware of&#;you don&#;t want that ink getting on your press platen!

And finally is the smooth cardstock. This one was not worth it at all&#;the colors are the most faded and mottled and the text is the hardest to read. There is not a lot of color definition and overall you&#;re not going to be happy with your transfer.

Finally, I washed my piece of fabric with all five transfers just to see if there would be any difference. I didn&#;t think there would be and I was right. The washed transfers were pretty much identical to the pre-washed transfers.

So for me and my set up, I thought the best paper was the TexPrint dye-sublimation paper. I&#;ve been using it on many of my projects and it always produces beautiful, vivid results!

Since I originally wrote this post, I have tried two other types of sublimation paper: The Sawgrass TruePix and the PYD Life paper. Both of them did great&#;I will continue to use both of those as well. There are also other brands like Koala sublimation paper and Printers Jack sublimation paper which I haven&#;t tested. I&#;d love to know if you&#;ve used these and what you think!

Still looking for a printer? Check out my Best Sublimation Printers Comparison!

I hope you found this sublimation paper comparison helpful&#;let me know if you have any questions in the comments!

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