Color Management Question

[RycckG]

OK, probably a very basic question but I am stumped. We print with a 6 color Gandi UV flatbed. We have built ICC profiles for our substrate. The profiles are close, but definitly not a perfect match to Pantone values. I am told, that they never will be with UV inks. When a customer gives us a PMS color, we adjust colors until we get an acceptable match with Pantone. Here's the problem...Often we do not get a PMS color, but our customer wants us to match his built color. Is there a way that I can know what his built color is supposed to be? I can sometimes work backwards with the cmyk equivelents provided in the Pantone book, but that is a real crap-shoot. I expect this is a very elementary question, but I think I am getting some bad advice.

Rick

 

[bob]

OK, probably a very basic question but I am stumped. We print with a 6 color Gandi UV flatbed. We have built ICC profiles for our substrate. The profiles are close, but definitly not a perfect match to Pantone values. I am told, that they never will be with UV inks. When a customer gives us a PMS color, we adjust colors until we get an acceptable match with Pantone. Here's the problem...Often we do not get a PMS color, but our customer wants us to match his built color. Is there a way that I can know what his built color is supposed to be? I can sometimes work backwards with the cmyk equivelents provided in the Pantone book, but that is a real crap-shoot. I expect this is a very elementary question, but I think I am getting some bad advice.

Simple. Just print a full Pantone color chart on the substrate your using. Then when you want a specific color, just find the color on your printed chart that's closest. If you have a color sample that's a tweener, that would be between two tones, go with the darker of the two.

With digital printing, close is as good as it gets.

 

[Rodan68]

We use a Pantone CMYK swatch book to find a close match for CMYK colors. Sometimes we plug the CMYK or RGB values into Photoshop or Corel and see what the closest Pantone color it picks out so we have an idea of what the color should look like. The colors are also going to depend on what color space they were created in. Otherwise ask the customer for a hard copy to match.

 

[cdiesel]

We only specifically match colors that are PMS designated. If they just give you a file with RGB or CMYK values, let the RIP sort it out (assuming your profiles are dialed in). If the client doesn't care enough to call the color out, then it obviously doesn't matter to them that much.

 

[Bly]

A properly profiled system should get pretty close off the bat, depending on the gamut of your inks.
And yeah if they have a spot colour that's important to them either name it in the PDF or point it out when ordering or get what prints.
I usually have a look in supplied PDFs in reader
Advanced > Print Production > Output Preview
The Onyx spotcolor table prints them a bit dark I find so leave it turned off. Most come through pretty close without having to massage them.

 

[visualeyez]

I sometimes tell the customer the that no two monitors are the same. The specific green color the designer chose, was based on what they saw on their monitor. My printer will print the exact color (based on color number values) that the designer specified, however their uncalibrated monitor colors probably will not match my calibrated printer's output.

 

[RycckG]

Thanks for all the answers: Is there a device, or technique I can adopt that will print more precise "tweeners". We are printing for the packaging industry. Most eveyone is typically using offset or flexo and they always get thier spot colors.

 

[mark in tx]

We are printing for the packaging industry. Most eveyone is typically using offset or flexo and they always get thier spot colors.

Bingo!

Digital printing is simulating those Pantone colors, you'll never hit them all.
You have to choose something close to what your customer wants that you know you can reproduce.

Also, get in touch with Mike Adams, he did the factory profiles for Gandi, and might be able to help you out quite a bit on your problems.
His website is www.correctcolor.org

 

[iSign Wraps]

Is there a way that I can know what his built color is supposed to be? I can sometimes work backwards with the cmyk equivelents provided in the Pantone book, but that is a real crap-shoot. I expect this is a very elementary question, but I think I am getting some bad advice.

Rick

You will never know... unless they provide a sample to pull a match from. If they are working from their screen color it is all guess work.

 

[astro8]

Use a Trumatch swatchbook...

 

[beermonster]

this is a handy illy script - after installing select the item with the colour (if it aint an original illy file then get a reading of the colour and create it in illy) then run the script - it will find the nearest matches for you

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&extid=1045730