Hilton Images, Inc.     Finest Quality Laser Sublimation Products

   For sublimation on gold and silver metals, the HP 4500 and 4550 give spectacular results. Rich, dense black, excellent color rendition.
On white substrates there is a grayish background, which is common to nearly all laser sublimation toners. Many users will add a texture in background areas, to make this look planned. But if the majority of your sublimation work will be on white substrates (white metal, ceramics, plastics, etc) you are best to use inkjet sublimation.
Always get samples to inspect for yourself before buying into a system.

After designing the 4500, HP switched to a non-magnetic, chemical-based toner for all new laser printers. To the toner cartridge remanufacturing industry this was like changing from foot-powered bicycles to ion-propulsion hovercraft. It was a space-alien technology. The after-market toner makers had to build new factories from the ground up. And with sublimation comprising less than 1 % of their toner business, developing a set of sublimation based new-tech toners wasn’t a high priority. Now we are starting to see new-tech color sublimation toners emerge. But the colors are not yet very good, and so far the printers (not HP printers) are just awful as printers. At Hilton Images, we are working with developing the HP ColorLaserJet3600 for full color sublimation, but it is too early to predict if it will be viable . We have tested and rejected at least four other color printers for use in sublimation. But the 4500 and 4550 are excellent sublimation printers for gold and silver metals.