Colouring printed digital images is one technique that seems to generate a lot of questions and causes a great deal of frustration. The printer ink bleeds or fades altogether, the paper pills or it ends up all buckled and difficult to work with! Grrrrrr... it's frustrating just writing about it!
Today I want to show you an easy and inexpensive trick for keeping your ink in place - heat setting. And just to make it interesting we'll do a comparison of a couple of different methods.
Before we really get going, I would like to point out that the type of ink you use in your printer as well as the type of paper you print on will have an impact on the results you get. Try to buy the best quality ink for your machine that you can afford as well as the best type of paper for the colouring method you want to use*.
HEAT GUN
Heat guns produce a stream of very hot air, topping out at around 400C / 750F. In paper crafting we generally use them to melt enamel and embossing powders or to dry inks and paint.
The downside to using a heat gun is that it tends to leave the paper warped, more so if you are heating a large area.
HOT DRY IRON
Another method is to use an iron, but make sure you turn off the steam setting first. (Who knew there would actually be a useful purpose for an iron!?)
The downside to using an iron is that it's relatively easy to scorch the paper, as you can see in the image below. It will leave a yellow cast to the paper... brown or black if you leave it longer!!
COLOURING
I coloured three of the images with copic markers - one image with no heat setting, one image heat-set with a heat tool and the third image heat-set with the iron. Have a look at the differences between the following pictures...
Notice how the image with no heat setting has a slightly muddy look to it, particularly in the pink of the flowers. The second image, set with the heat gun, has much less of a muddy appearance, but it is still obvious that the ink has run. The best result, in my opinion, is from the hot, dry iron.
DISTRESS INKS
I repeated the same process again but coloured the images with distress inks. Interestingly, this colouring method did not seem to cause the printer ink to run as easily as it did when using the alcohol markers. I assume this is because the blending process with the markers is a lot more involved, giving the printer ink a lot more opportunity to bleed.
* I have an Epson ink jet printer and only use Epson brand ink. The cardstock I used for today's tutorial is Whisper White by Stampin' Up. I am not affiliated with either company.
Lovely lesson. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteFantastic tutorial Beccy..Loz
ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting....thanks so much for taking the time to do this. Now off to do some ironing. :-)
ReplyDeleteGreat tut Beccy, am sure heaps of us out there will find this usefull..♥
ReplyDeleteThank you very much! I have trouble with the ink running...I notice it especially in faces. I have tried a heat gun but not an iron! This will be fun and easy ironing! LOL Brenda
ReplyDeleteBeccy, I've worked with digital images for years and the easiest way I've found on any kind of paper is simply to rub an eraser over the image. The eraser removes ink that hasn't set in the paper and you are good to color with whatever medium you want. Just thought I'd share that with you and your readers.
ReplyDeleteThanks Beccy and Holly! I am going to try both!
DeleteThis is just fantastic, sometimes I do have a mudding problem with copic, especially if I use the very pale colors, like the 0000, I will certainly try heat setting. thank so much for sharing. Hugs;.
ReplyDeleteGreat tutorial, Beccy!
ReplyDeleteI use a lot of digital images, but for me, the end of the problem was to print with a laser print :)
Thanks Beccy, I will be trying the iron! Who knew:O)
ReplyDeletehugs
glenda
Thanks Beccy, looks like I may have to get the iron out now :) Viv xx
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteBeccy, thanks so much, I don't have copics but do have the distress markers as well as some waterbased markers. This is so helpful and now maybe I will give it a try!
ReplyDeleteGREAT ideas!! i just sray fixative over any work i do. works teriffic, no runs or paper color change... but i really dig trying new stuff! thanks so much for sharing! xo
ReplyDeletethank you very much wonderfull help,
ReplyDeletexoxo Doro
I will try it, thanks
ReplyDeletexxx Willy
Thanks so much for this Beccy. Will have a go. :o)
ReplyDeleteLove Joan xx
Thanks for this wonderful tutorial and the beautiful inspiration card.
ReplyDeleteLove the coloring with Distress inks... Also, I use various brands of alcohol-based markers, and it seems to react with some printer inks and not others -- even some within the same "brand" or "line" of printer ink. I haven't come up with any solution other than trial and error to see if the alcohol inks will react with the printer ink. I recently switched over to a laser printer, and I have a much more consistent result with that not running or bleeding, but I've also read that it's not always consistent with laser printers either.
ReplyDeleteI have this flower image already and coloring with colored pencils. Sometimes I used the blower to after I printed my images.
ReplyDeleteThanks for always take the time and sharing beautiful images and tutorials.
-Sony
Sonia-Studio60
Great tutorial, thank you for sharing. I am wondering if we print them on Watercolor paper if that would help some. I like both the heat gun and iron, either one is acceptable.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting. What I would like to know is how do you color digital images with water colors? What paper, etc. I have tried everything ( I don't know alot) and it does not turn out right. I honestly would appreciate any help you could give me. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteWhat an awesome tutorial. How I love pintrest and that's how I found this wonderful bit of knowledge. Thanks so very much for sharing this tip! Will save me a boatload in stamps :)
ReplyDeleteI heard this way of colouring too. Not yet tried it. Using the water based inks (distress) stamp the pad colours of your choice onto a plaint white tile or something white and non stick, then using a water colour painting brush use those colours as your palette.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant, thanks for sharing x
ReplyDelete