Top 3 Best Sublimation Software For Design and Printing In 2023
The market is rushed with plenty of software for sublimation printing. Still, the best program to use for sublimation is most important. The most common things that many designers demand for any sublimation software are easy set-up, fast processing, designing speed, and a reasonable, affordable budget.
Hobart John: an Australian graphic designer, says “preferring the best sublimation software saves time and makes more quality graphics for you”. Choosing what program to use for sublimation printing is now easy because our team listed the top three best sublimation software underneath.

Top 3 Best Sublimation Software In 2023 For Sublimation Printing
Let’s explore the top best sublimation software for designing and editing with ease. Our team invested their time listing the most accessible and most popular sublimation apps for you. These apps are abode Photoshop, GIMP, and CorelDraw. For a complete and detailed factual description with a guide, keep pursuing blow:
1. Adobe Photoshop – Best Design Software For Sublimation
Key Features:
- Adobe Photoshop
- Automated Editing, Personalized Creations
- Supported All Devices
Abode Photoshop is the most demanding and the best design software for sublimation in today’s graphics designing world. In fact, it is the most popular and first design software developed in 1988 by Abode Inc.
It is specially designed for macOS and Windows for graphics and photo editing. You can add various graphics plug-ins to enhance designing efficiency. These plug-ins provide more options and a lot of fonts as well.
Whether you want to do 3D extrusion or photo editing, this software proves the handiest tool for sublimation printing. Moreover, it is available in more than 26 languages, and everyone can use it conveniently.
Thus, always prefer to choose adobe Photoshop’s latest versions for a printing company. In fact, it provides pixel-based designing with a free first seven-day trial. Additionally, Adobe Photoshop sublimation is all-purpose software with multiple subscription plans. Moreover, it also has monthly subscription plans for regular and annual users. So, always prefer to install this tool as the best sublimation designing software.
Final Verdict:
We recommend Adobe Photoshop (photo editing app) as the best sublimation software for professionals. Thus, it is the most demanding because anyone can use it free of cost. Moreover, Photoshop is easy to run with free tutorials for designing.
Pros
Support a wide variety of plug-ins.
Available in many languages.
The best because it can run both in Windows and Mac OS.
Pixel-based designing.
Cons
Minimum 8GB RAM requires to run smoothly.
2. GIMP Software – Best Editing Software For Sublimation

Key Features:
- GIMP Software
- Raw Photo Editing Software and Photoshop Alternative
- Supported All Devices
To get rid of subscriptions, there is a need for free designing software. Unlike Adobe Photoshop, GIMP is totally free of cost software. It is an open-source and image editing tool with 40 MB-sized software.
Furthermore, the GIMP development team was developed in 1998 with a user-friendly interface. Now, it is most prevalent in graphics as the best sublimation software. It is written in C language and is known as a raster graphics editor.
Its primary purpose is to manipulate the existing images and designs. The interesting fact is that you can run this software even on a system with 250 MB RAM. In addition, GIMP has various editing uses as its icons, images, logos, photo and illustrations manipulations.
The most demanding feature of GIMP is the extensively used filters for editing. Further, these GIMP filters have many layers options such as light, distorts, blur, shadow, enhancement, and many more.GIMP sublimation software is compatible with Windows 10, 8, and 7 (run on both 64-bit, and 32-bit). You can add third-party plug-ins for more customization for quality and ease in sublimation prints.
Final Verdict:
We recommend GIMP as the easiest design software for sublimation because of no subscription demand. Thus, it is the best editor for beginners to easily edit for sublimation designing with a customizable interface.
Pros
Best for beginners.
Supports 3rd party filters to enhance performance.
Gives amazing results with Epson printers.
Cons
It cannot use for drawing purposes.
3. CorelDraw Graphics Suite – Best For Professionals In Sublimation Industry

Key Features:
- CorelDraw Graphics Suite
- All-in-One Illustration Advanced Level Software
- Supported All Devices
CorelDraw is a graphics editor’s suite for all sorts of graphics editing and drawing. It was developed by Corel Corporation in 1989. Further, try to install the latest version to avail more and more functionalities.
This most powerful computer program for sublimation printing has a fantastic variety of libraries enriched with plenty of gradients, photos, and templates. Thus, this vector graphic software is widely used for logos, icons, photographs, editing, and drawing with free set-up.
There are many coral graphics suites available in this software for free sublimation designing. For example, this software has Corel photo paint, bitmap image editors, and many more. In fact, the software has a flexible user interface with monthly subscriptions for one-time users. Moreover, it provides a yearly subscription for regular users. It provides fifteen days of free trials with a one-time purchase as well.
Final Verdict:
We recommend Corel draw as the best sublimation design software because of its vector base graphics for easy artwork. The most exciting thing is that you can just pay a flat price for lifetime usage. Thus, it is the best choice for professional sublimation designing.
Pros
Incredible vector graphics sublimation software.
Easy to understand and flexible.
Free 15 days trial for new users.
Customizable UI.
Perfect for artwork.
Cons
Raster images incompatibility.
Buying Guide
Let’s discuss some main factors that you must check before installing or buying sublimation software. These primary factors are below:
Software Set-Up and Installation:
Always look for the best sublimation software that has an easy set-up procedure. The free software wizard helps install without needing a tutorial watch. Easy installation always attracts and increases the customer for a particular software.
Compatibility and Plug-In Support:
Checking the compatibility of software makes it easy for your machine. The software that runs on Windows, macOS, or even Linux is most demanding in the market for users.
Another thing you need to check is the plug-ins capability of sublimation software. Before buying or installing, read its description and ensure that the software supports third-party plug-ins to enhance functionality.
Easy To Understand UI:
The best sublimation software for beginners or experts must have easy to operate and under user interface. Thus, the powerful tools always have easy UI for users to produce and design logos, icons, photos, and many more.
Accessible user interfaces help to design effortlessly and speedily. Moreover, you do not need to learn and invest your precious time before drawing a photo with a tool.
Free OR Paid Software:
Whether you are a beginner or expert graphic designer, free software is always attracting everyone. Well, for personal uses, I always prefer to buy free-to-cost software like GIMP or Photoshop/CorelDraw having limited functionalities.
On the other hand, for extensive demands, you can choose the software with monthly or yearly subscriptions plans. Although free software is best for beginners with some basic features. For professionals, you need to buy a paid tool for sublimation printing design.
Conclusion

In a nutshell, there are multiple types of sublimation software available in the market. These best Sublimation printing software/apps support fast processing with amazing illustrations as well. And in this review, we presented the top three sublimation software on the basis of easy design, compatibility, features, and pricing.
Among all, we prefer one for all types of users:
“Adobe Photoshop is one of the most demanding and best apps for sublimation printing. Moreover, it is because of its wide range of features for beginners and experts. It is available free (with limited features) as well as on subscription bases too (entirely dependent on user demand)”. We hope that our above list of the 3 best sublimation software helped you while deciding to get your new sublimation software.