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Color Matching Trouble

Switchblade

New Member
This morning I tried making a digital version of a paint swatch a customer wanted for a sign. I matched it just fine after a few test prints via FlexiSign. The problem was after I copied the swatch and pasted it into a shared flexi file it printed way brighter. All the versa works settings were the same too; I have no idea what went wrong wrong. The printer seems fine and the slider information was numerically identical to the last (a marked what # RGB each slider used). Anyone have an idea of what went wrong? I ended up just restarting the color matching process in the shared file, so it all turned out fine but I'd really like to know if anyone has any insight on what may have happened. Thank You. SB
 

spooledUP7

New Member
It's best to use a pantone color when matching colors. CMYK and RGB are not finite enough to have predictable outputs between devices, RIPS, design applications and medias. Most RIPS will have spot color mappings tuned with the ICC profile to produce the truest match to the spot color book.

There are still factors such as pass counts, resolutions, color space, rendering intent, and a long long list of other small differences independent of the ICC which can modify colors. The best practice is to develop your profile for your specific media which produces the closest match to a defined color matching system such as Pantone, print the color chart, and use the color chart to reference the appropriate color during art creation. In theory most output which are tuned properly will have similar and predictable outputs when using a color matching system. Of course most probably are not tuned so your mileage may vary.

If you are the only one printing the output then you could choose to use a CMYK and RGB color chart, output the color chart, and use those specific colors just like the spot color chart. However, if you are going to have someone else output, or a separate RIP, then you will most likely have shifting color output when using CMYK, especially if there are mixtures of RGB, CMYK, Gradients, and Text.

Rendering intent starts to get a little messy during this scenario, which may be exactly your issue with your current situation. Make sure the color space (Adobe RGB 1998, vs sRGB..) and that all your rendering intents are are the same as the profile within the rip.

Also, if you are using FlexiSign Rip and Print then always 100% of the time select the Preset from the drop down menu even if it is displayed already or "Default". Some settings from the presets are not fully implemented until you re-select the preset. Very important to do this.
 

Solventinkjet

DIY Printer Fixing Guide
Do you save your files as anything other than the Flexi format? If you design a square and give it a color in Flexi and then send it to the production manager, it sends a Flexi file. If you save the file as an EPS and then send it over, it will print different because EPS files don't embed input profiles. That would definitely cause an issue like this.
 
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