Decals
A ceramic decal is, technically speaking, a colored ceramic toner image attached to a clear or yellow transfer medium.
A decal paper is a thin, very water-absorbing white paper that is coated with a gum. The image is printed on the gum, not the paper.
This paper is often called 'waterslide paper'.
Lamination paper is a very thin layer of covercoat adhered to a sheet of paper. The lamination layer, when heated, permanently adheres tightly to the toner and gum on the waterslide or decal paper.
The actual decal that is fired onto an object to transfer the image is only the gum, toner image and lamination layers.
Upper Level Ceramic Decals
- Great for any colored or black and white digital images
- Minimum order 1 sheet
- Printable areas are 7-3/4 by 10-3/4 inches (A4) and 8 by 10-12 inches (Letter)
- Our digitized decals are printed with either cyan, magenta, yellow, and black toners. OR cyan, red, yellow and black toners.
Upper Level Ceramic Decals DO NOT include white or metallic colors.
The non-fluxed Upper Level Invisible Cinnamaldayhe cover coat / lamination layer will burn away during the firing. It is unique in that it is made with cinnamon bark essential oil; it contains no petrochemicals and is non-toxic.
Depending on the softness of the glaze, the resulting decal will be relatively matte. The ceramic toners, most notably red/magenta, are themselves toxic but do not burn off.
FLUXED LAMINATION PAPER
Upper Level Fluxed Lamination paper is fluxed, meaning that it will produce a thin layer of glass on top of the image when fired. Therefore it creates a glossy finish. However because this produces a very thin layer of glass it usually leaves a visible "halo" wherever the lamination layer doesn't cover parts of the image. Therefore it may leave a slight raised edge at the edge of the decal and on coloured tile it may also produce a slightly whitish tone to the finish. The softer the glaze on the ware the less obvious it will appear.
When using fluxed lamination decals, we recommend you cover all of the ware/tile with the decal. Alternatively you can cut the decal close to the edge of the image so that the edge or the halo effect is not obvious.
An advantage of fluxed lamination is that it will lock in the toxic qualities of the coloured toner used to make the image and protect the image from physical erosion, such as occurs with scrubbing or food acids or utensils
Full Color Digital Decal Costs
onetime setup fee of $15 per design/layout *
1-9 sheets $20 per sheet
10-19 sheets $16 per sheet
20-100 sheets $13.5 per sheet
PLEASE NOTE-Discounts do not apply to custom decal prints.
*we may charge up to $25 set up fee if color matching is extremely critical and/or the design is complicated. For critical color matching, we strongly advise providing us with a printed proof.
How to Send Your File
The following are simply recommendations to get the most from our high resolution printing process.
- Image files should be sent to .com. If your file is over 10MB you may need to use a free file sharing service like DropBox.com or Google Drive.
- 300 dpi file resolution renders the best image
- Adobe Illustrator, Acrobat, Photoshop and ".tiff" are the recommended formats. We can help with filework for a small fee.
- Black & white images should be in grayscale.
- Color images should be in "CMYK SWOP coated" profile. This CMYK profile will give you the best rendering on your screen of the color limitation of the digital process.
If your image doesn't meet these guidelines, don't fret! Send us the file and we'll let you know if we can make it work for you. (Design work may require a nominal set-up fee.)