In modern life, one often has to deal with such a situation when it is necessary to apply a certain image to the surface. Typically, such actions are associated with the advertising business, when the slogan or logo of the company must be placed on certain products. Quite often, many people want to buy a mug or t-shirt with their photo or lettering of a certain type for a gift. In most of these cases, thermal transfer paper is used.
At its core, it resembles an ordinary sheet of paper, which has a special layer that can be glued to another surface when heated. Moreover, if a certain pattern is applied to it, then it will also be transferred to the selected surface. Therefore, thermal transfer paper in its properties resembles the usual "snapshot".
A standard printer is usually used to apply an image to a sheet of such paper. Moreover, it can be both laser and inkjet. However, it is worth considering that each specific type of device requires a certain paper.
The laser printer requires a special thermal transfer paper for laser printing, which is more adapted to powder paint and can withstand the heating of the furnace device. If you use ordinary thermal transfer paper on a laser printer, you can not only spoil the paper and drawing, but even disable the device. It should be noted that the print quality of a laser printer is much lower than that of an inkjet printer with the ability to print photos, and if you need to apply images with great detail, it is better to use a conventional inkjet printer, which uses thermal transfer paper for inkjet printing.
When drawing a picture on a sheet of paper, it must be borne in mind that the image will then be transferred to the surface, which means that it must be applied to the paper in a mirror image. It is also worth considering the color of the surface where the future drawing will be located, and pick up special paper for this, since the shell itself also has its own color. There is thermal transfer paper in black, white and even transparent type of cover, which must be considered before use.
After the image has been applied to paper, it can be transferred to the surface using a press and temperature. For example, to place a picture on a T-shirt, thermal transfer paper is placed on it with an image to the fabric, and then with the help of an iron it is heated and pressure is created on it. In this case, it is worth considering the temperature range, which is usually indicated on the packaging with paper. It also contains information about the time of exposure to temperature and some other useful parameters.
It is worth noting that the price of thermal transfer paper is not very high, which means that almost everyone can make a T-shirt with the logo of their favorite team or photograph. Moreover, such a process will take no more than half an hour, and the image quality will be at a fairly high level.