How to Prevent Black Ink from Smearing on Glossy Paper

Problem: Black ink does not dry on glossy printable vinyl. This problem is common for inkjet printing.

Cause: Black pigment inks do not bind well with glossy surfaces. (There are two types of inks for home inkjet printers: 1. dye inks and 2. pigment inks)

The common setup for home inkjet printers is to use pigment ink for black and dye inks for color. This is the reason why when it comes to ink not drying well on glossy surfaces, it is always the black ink causing issue.

Recommended solution: To minimize the amount of black pigment ink deposited. In order to do this:

1) For paper type settings, select photo paper
When this is selected, the black areas will be created by mixing the colored inks together with the black pigmented ink to help with binding. Unfortunately there are some printers that do not allow the use of photo paper setting with letter sized sheets. A potential work around is to cut the sheets down to the size that the printer allows.

2) Always use color settings even if your artwork is black and white only
When this is selected, the black areas will be created by mixing the colored inks together with the black pigmented ink to help with binding.

These two settings should work for most printers. If it doesn't, do drop us a message to provide more information and we will try to help!