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Hello new member with an old roland problem

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Squeeg

New Member
So I've been producing vehicle wraps for close to 4 years and have always had a problem with certain colors shifting with sun light. I use a Roland XC 540 proIII powered by roland versaworks. We use 3M IJ-1080v3 vinyl laminated with 3M 8518 laminate. All wrap designs are designed using Photoshop.

we are currently wrapping a boat. The design for the boat is tan and grey. We are to match the tan color of the upholstery. the print produced matches perfect in the install bay but turns a pee green color when outside in the sun. This is a problem we have had for years. Why is this happening! We have produced these colors(tans & Greys) with success in the past apparently by luck. I would love to know why this happens. If anyone can help please let me know. Sooner the better my boat customer is loosing patients!
 
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DavidT

New Member
There is no easy solution, under different light the pigments will reflect different colours.

You can Print a bunch of swatches and get the customer to approve in the light that the print will most often be displayed.

Printing with CMYK, Lc, LM and light black will hopefully allow more neutral and consistent grays


David
 
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LittleSnakey

New Member
Alot has to do with the lamps you are using in the fluorescent fixture, particularly the color of the lamp and what is overlooked most is the CRI, color rendering index of the lamp. A lamp with a part number F32T8/741 has worse color rendering than lamp F32T8/841both are the same color, 4100k Best would be F32T8/941
This page explains some more.
http://www.topbulb.com/color-rendering-index/



FrankW said:
Have a look on this wikipedia-article about "Metamerism".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamerism_(color)

You should not match the color in the install bay, if it is important that they have to match under sunlight.
Click to expand...
 
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Suz

New Member
There are so many variables that influence what color(s) you end up getting when you print and/or mix colors.

I have read so much about this and experimented quite a bit too with color over the years. For many years, I worked in offset printing and screenprinting. I still have a small screenprinting shop and still mixing inks for that work.

After I got my wide format printer, I got some help on this site by some very generous members who gave me some great feedback on color charts and pms colors. I just needed to make some good charts myself.

It's a little bit of work, but when you have reliable color charts you have printed from your own printer and know what color profiles and materials you used to get the result you see on your printed color chart(s), then you have something you can probably trust.

Even though I've taken the time to make these charts myself, I still like to take sample prints outside to compare what I am printing to what I am matching whenever a Customer is very specific about color. I'll make new charts for colors I want and make a range of small squares with those color mixes and print them out, then view them in daylight. I can usually peg the color I need and then I use it when preparing my actual files to print.

A strange phenomenon to make note of: Colors will seem to change right before your eyes, depending on what they are next to. Other colors can reflect into the color you thought looked so perfect. Or, your eyeball just mixes it all up. Weird stuff, but it happens. LOL!

Oh, and ditto on what was already mentioned about the laminates sometimes having a yellow tint, which changes the color that you printed!!! I have had that happen, recently I had a blue color that I printed (big sign and picky Customer) turn a bit green when it was laminated. Had to print it again and laminate it again, all before showing to Customer. Waste of money!!! Lesson learned. I then made special color charts with the lam material applied before reprinting the job. Final result: Dead on color, No complaint by Customer.

I've heard that if you combine incandescent lights with florescent lights, you can mimic daylight and I do that when I'm working at night and can't use daylight. I've tried it, but still prefer daylight, so try to do my more important color tests during the day.

Hope that helps some. Good luck to you! Let us know what you come up with.
 
eahicks

eahicks

Magna Cum Laude - School of Hard Knocks
ALWAYS, ALWAYS run a color test strip, laminate it and view outside. Lam always adds a yellow tint (3M anyway) and certain colors will shift. Calibration and correct profiles are the starting point, but always run test strips and laminate to view in daylight.
 
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