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Laser Sublimation on Leather

When a beautiful material like leather is personalized with a name or logo, the perceived value of the final product rises like a rocket. But how can you put an image on soft leather gloves, a man's wallet, or a finished leather jacket?

Laser sublimation produces a beautiful, durable black image. Care must be taken using the heat press on some of the more delicate leathers, and some items require use of heat transfer blocks, but once you've learned the basics, it's a simple and very rewarding process.

For basic laser sublimation, you create an image on your computer, print it to a laser printer using a sublimation toner cartridge on ordinary copy paper, and then you transfer the image by pressing it with a heat press to the substrate. If you've got an HP laser printer you can probably get a sublimation toner cartridge for it, and you can switch between ordinary toner cartridges and sublimation toner cartridges quickly and easily. HP LaserJets suitable for sublimation are available for $100 and up.

Our experiments with inkjet sublimation on leather turned out dismally. The dyes in inkjet sublimation inks are much weaker than those in laser sublimation, and on leather the black images came out very weak and washed-out, even with a lot of extra time in the press. And the colors were even worse. Color sublimation depends on having a white background, and putting a weak color image on a tan or brown background produced no good results. Color laser sublimation was not good either - very muddy with skewed colors. Red became brown, blue became brownish blue, yellow became brown. Only black did well, but it did really well.

Black laser sublimation on leather is truly stunning. The black is strong and you can get very fine detail. Lighter colored leathers allow for greater contrast and make the image more visible. But a black image on black leather, while very subtle, is actually quite attractive. Laser sublimation will leave a grayish background on white leathers and some lighter-colored leathers. The background can be reduced by pressing the paper for ten seconds on a scrap of polyester fabric, and then pressing the same paper on the leather. Still, there may be a visible background on some very light-colored leathers. It is always best to test your materials before committing to a job.

The finish used on leathers varies from one leather to another. So expect pressing times to vary as well when you switch from one leather product to another. Please plan for some waste if you try this, and build that into your pricing.

Sublimating on flat leather

It was surprising how sensitive to laser sublimation leather actually is. On most of the leathers we tested we got an excellent image transferred at 340F for ten to fifteen seconds with very light pressure. Light pressure is important when working with leather. It is all too easy to permanently damage a leather surface with too much pressure in a heatpress. We adjusted our press to just 'kiss' the surface of the leather. It's almost no pressure at all, just full contact.

The sublimated image is actually in the surface of the leather and doesn't flake off, wash off, or scratch off. We haven't tested fade resistence yet, but laser sublimation will last for many years indoors and in outdoor shade. Direct sunlight, of course, is never recommended.

Working with flat leather is straightforward. Print out your image, mirror image, on regular copy paper. Cut the paper around the image and, using heat-resistant tape, secure it to the leather. Place in the heat press with the taped paper facing up. I like to put a sheet of paper or a teflon sheet over the leather, to prevent the leather from coming in contact with the surface of the heat press. Press at very light pressure for ten to fifteen seconds at arond 340F. Again, your pressing time may vary depending on the materials you're using.

We found that the back of many leathers also sublimates very well. The back is usually a rougher surface, but it takes a very nice sublimated image.

Textured leathers

Some leathers have a textured surface which will have an effect on sublimation. The paper will not rest in the valleys between the hills of the surface. You can increase pressure to flatten the texture and get sublimation into every portion, but that will probably leave a permanent mark on the leather. So, try increasing time to twenty to thirty seconds. Unless you're doing a fine print (which is unlikely on a heavily textured leather) the extra time won't hurt the image and it will tend to fill in the valleys. Or, you can let the sublimation only transfer to the hills and accentuate the leather's texture by NOT sublimating in the valleys.

Photographs

Very few monochrome laser printers are really good at printing photographs. That's just not what they were designed for. But the HP P2015 is actually very good at black and white photos, and that's what we used for our leather work. The phrase 'black and white' really doesn't apply when you're putting a photo on leather. 'Black and tan' or 'black and brown' are more accurate. The background, which on a normal photo would be white, is now some shade of brown. This can look stunning, but it will never have the contrast that a normal photo would have.

You'll need a light-colored leather to work with. A smooth surface is desirable also. Scratches or scuffs on the leather will become glaring when a photograph is sublimated over them, so select your leather with care.

The sensitivity of the materials can become a problem with sublimating photographs. Middle tone grays sublimate into dense black just as fast as the dense blacks sublimate into dense black. In other words, if you print a conventional photo and try to sublimate it on leather, your shadow areas will be black, your middle tone grays will be black, and your highlights will be OK. No amount of fussing with times and temperatures will yield decent middle tones.

The only thing you can do is to dramatically reduce overall density. In Photoshop™, I adjusted brightness to +90. Yes, ninety. This produced a paper transfer that looked weak, but sublimated very well. Some of the brighter highlights were blown out, but since we're working on a dark, not white, surface, this is really a good thing.

I pressed at 340EF for twelve seconds.

Sublimating on already finished products

You can't put a lady's leather glove or a purse in a heat press. Originally I had the idea of using a heat transfer block. I used to sublimate dinner plates using a 'puck' to transfer heat and pressure from the top of the heat press to the center of the dinner plate. So I thought I could make a little aluminum block and put it on top of the glove in a heat press.

I made a small aluminum block from some scrap aluminum, and took care to round all the edges which would come in contact with leather. The block I made was about one inch by two inches, and was approximately one half-inch thick. I later found I could use any of the block's surfaces to press with, and that gave me a variety of small image sizes to work with.

The area which is going to receive the image must be flat, and some objects like the glove have seams or creases which don't allow the upper surface to lay flat. For the glove I cut down a scrap UniSub coaster to fit inside the glove. All that is needed is a flat surface under the area to be sublimated. It doesn't even have to be perfectly level, just flat. When I pressed the upper arm of a leather jacket I inserted a wooden block under the area to be sublimated.

I tried putting a glove with an insert and a heat transfer block in a heat press. I could not get the pressure light enough to prevent damaging the soft leather. The transfer was fine, but the block left an impression which appeared to be permanent.

Finally, I gave up altogether on putting the glove in the press. I put the aluminum transfer block in the press and clamped it down.. I prepared the glove, taping the cut-out transfer in position, and placed the flat backing surface inside it. After a few minutes of heating up the block, I lifted it with pliers and placed it on the glove. I pressed very lightly with the pliers on top of the block, just to ensure it was making contact with the whole transfer area. After fifteen second (which was a guess) I lifted the block and peeled off the paper. Excellent transfer.

The concept of using a small metal block as a tiny heat press can be used on just about any finished leather product. Make the transfer on regular copy paper, trim it to size. Tape it in position on the finished leather. Heat up the metal block and lay it in position for about fifteen seconds. This technique will allow you to work in small areas with a small transfer block and on any sort of finished product. Just allow for some testing and waste of materials, and be sure to build that waste factor into your pricing.