You have it mixed up.
The dye inks you're talking about are whats used in normal inkjet printers. Dye-sublimation printers apply an additional (UV/water resistant) overcoat layer, so they don't fade. And dye inks clog too, anyone who has left an inkjet printer idle for months will have experienced this
. Dye-sub printing can also be used for fabrics but not exclusively - the Canon selphy does not support printing on fabrics at all and is meant only for photo paper. Pigment inks are used in higher-end inkjet printers and are as fade resistant as dye-sub prints with an overcoat, but resolution and droplet size becomes important since inkjets use dithering to represent different colours and this can be noticeable if you look closely and the resolution isn't enough. Also, if i'm not mistaken, dye-sub printers are used for digital prints by most photo studios
Actually, I am right. below is a cool video from Kodak about the pigment and dye based inks.
On the other hand sublimation inks are different, sublimation means change of the state from solid to gas upon heating. here, the sublimation inks are basically a type of pigment inks where when you heat the ink, it directly converts to gas. so you print a page in mirror, put it on a t shirt and apply heat. voila, you get a t shirt printed. again, for sublimation you use a special paper which doesn't absorb the ink so that the print is efficiently transferred to the cloth.
dye based inks don't clog. I have a t13 with dye ink at home.
coming to the purchase of the printer, I suggest Epson printers any day because:
1. Epson print heads use piezo technology to vibrate the ink molecules to print, unlike other printers which heat the ink. that means sublimation inks can be used only with piezo heads.
2. Lots of aftermarket cartridges, so total cost of ownership comes down drastically.
3. even if you use shitty aftermarket ink, it doesn't damage the printer head, because of piezoelectric head.
in op's case I would suggest that he buy a t13 with refillable cartridges. so, whenever he wants to print photos he should use original cartridges and for documents he should use aftermarkets.
on the higher range, Epson T60 is another good printer which has 1.5pl with 6 color cartridges. (6 color cartridges give better photo quality)
