I need to explain to a designer why we have trouble with certain colours

[gabagoo]

I have a client, who's client is a large bank. I have done work for them in the past, but I was requested to do this one retractable banner for an inside branch of the bank which uses a darker blue than their normal colour and even if I found a match on my color charts I have we still could not change the colour as there is gold copy on the banner which fades to the blue so if we changed the main blue colour, how would we change each gredation of all the others and make it match up and blend properly. For the sake of one banner I decided to let the printer do its thing. Trying to achieve a dark navy blue can be difficult in cmyk and even my pantone bridge chart basically shows the colour to be somewhat washed out and weak which is how my printer, printed it. Now she wants me to have a conference call with the designer to determine how we can get the colour closer.
Trying not to sound like a dimwit let me ask you guys if this makes sense. First of all, before I even saw what they wanted I asked for a pdf file and a tiff file. The tiff file was done as rgb (this is a designer for a bank). The pdf file is all cmyk, so basically I printed what I received. Now, how about if I ask the designer what Pantone blue she wants, then I find the appropriate match using all my pantone charts I have printed, and then tell her to set the file and the gradient to the pantone that I have that matches the pantone they want. Then when the file comes in it should be pretty well ready to go. Does this sound to easy?

 

[Circleville Signs]

Nope - you've got the process down.

And you're doing better with it than I would. I'd tell her that if she wants a true pantone match then she should get the checkbook out. Otherwise she is going to have to deal with the limitations of digital CMYK printing.

Of course, I'm kind of a dick, so that's just what I would do....lol.


Gary

 

[Techman]

I will bet,,,what she sees on her monitor is what she thinks she will get,, But they never match in the real world of wide format printing,,

 

[SebastienL]

I would just ask for the original, unflattened file. It will probably faster the do these mods yourself than try to explain it to a "designer". That is usually what we do.

 

[gabagoo]

I would just ask for the original, unflattened file. It will probably faster the do these mods yourself than try to explain it to a "designer". That is usually what we do.

The problem for me is that there is a gradient of gold that slowly turns to blue and thats is why I cant really control every gradient. She has to do it on her end, or I have to reset the entire file up. Plus there is a large gradient of Blue that gets darker and lighter throughout. What puzzles me is that a bank of all clients does tons of 4 colour printing and I have seen some of their brochures and the Pantone blue is the same as how my printer basically deciphered it. Sure in the pantone book it is a rich deep blue, but the cmyk match is horribly , awfully off. So how do the printers get away with it and I am made to feel that I failed?

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Maybe it's just me, but we get some funky color issues when printing directly from pdfs. Try rasterizing the pdf in Photoshop as a cmyk image, saving it as a .tiff and printing that. Don't know if it will help, but 95% of our work comes in as a pdf file and we do this to every one and only very very rarely have a color issue. If we ripped the same pdfs directly from the customer we'd have colors wrong all over the place.

Dunno if it'll work, but give it a shot....

 

[gabagoo]

Maybe it's just me, but we get some funky color issues when printing directly from pdfs. Try rasterizing the pdf in Photoshop as a cmyk image, saving it as a .tiff and printing that. Don't know if it will help, but 95% of our work comes in as a pdf file and we do this to every one and only very very rarely have a color issue. If we ripped the same pdfs directly from the customer we'd have colors wrong all over the place.

Dunno if it'll work, but give it a shot....

it will still print the cmyk version of a colour that does not want to be printed in cmyk lol. I have to admit the print did look good it's just that the original blue probably pantone probably has some translucent inks to create the colour

 

[javila]

So how do the printers get away with it and I am made to feel that I failed?

They probably tell the client what's possible and what's not, up front?

 

[I-Style]

Hi gabagoo, my suggestion is to Print your different Pantone blue and sent it to her that she can chose and than modify her graphic, sending you an RGB looks like what she sees is what she get believer..... to excuse her most designer just know the theory and never tried to put Ink on some thing

 

[visualeyez]

Tell them that thier monitors are backlit RGB and the product is a frontlit CMYK printed banner, and you need a CMYK printed frontlit object to match color from, or a pantone color number.

 

[timson_ads]

swatches of your customer preffered color would help.. send them some swatches of your nearest print..

 

[signmeup]

Tell them that thier monitors are backlit RGB and the product is a frontlit CMYK printed banner, and you need a CMYK printed frontlit object to match color from, or a pantone color number.

This sounds like a good approach. You have to remember that she's only a designer, and explain things in very simple terms.

 

[anotherdog]

I have similar issues with a distant customer, I printed swatches of the colours involved, and possible replacement colours, sent them to the designer.
It really depends if you have an experienced designer or not. I would get away from pantones and work on cmyk or rgb values.

However I found there are sneaky work-arounds!

I have a corporate colour that I can only match using the Max impact preset. One day the client also wanted images in the banner. I printed the Max impact coprorate colour, returned to origin and printed a different file with the photos.

Worked a treat!

The only way you will really make things work is if the designer sends you the design files and you tweak the spots.

 

[gabagoo]

I have similar issues with a distant customer, I printed swatches of the colours involved, and possible replacement colours, sent them to the designer.
It really depends if you have an experienced designer or not. I would get away from pantones and work on cmyk or rgb values.

However I found there are sneaky work-arounds!

I have a corporate colour that I can only match using the Max impact preset. One day the client also wanted images in the banner. I printed the Max impact coprorate colour, returned to origin and printed a different file with the photos.

Worked a treat!

The only way you will really make things work is if the designer sends you the design files and you tweak the spots.

For the sake of one retractable it almost seems like a lost cause. After all is said and done, I better see more work from this division mof the bank.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

What are the CMYK numbers of the blue you are trying to print?

 

[gabagoo]

What are the CMYK numbers of the blue you are trying to print?

its pantone 289. Bridge chart shows it as a washed out light navy colour.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

I know that, but if it's a tiff it's not a spot color, it's a process color. That's why I'm curious. Converting from rgb to cmyk or back can change the cmyk values. I'm just wondering if you've eyedropped the blue color to see if it's the correct cmyk formula for that blue. You should have no problem hitting it, it's not a hard color to match. But it's not difficult for the values to get messed up. Check it in the file and post what it is, that will tell you right away whether it's the file, the designer's color workflow or your color workflow. If the values are what they should be for 289 and you're not getting the right color, or at least very close to it, your color management is messed up somewhere. If they are not close to what they should be for 289, and you have not worked with the file aside from strictly opening it or ripping it, the issue is on the designer's end.

 

[gabagoo]

I know that, but if it's a tiff it's not a spot color, it's a process color. That's why I'm curious. Converting from rgb to cmyk or back can change the cmyk values. I'm just wondering if you've eyedropped the blue color to see if it's the correct cmyk formula for that blue. You should have no problem hitting it, it's not a hard color to match. But it's not difficult for the values to get messed up. Check it in the file and post what it is, that will tell you right away whether it's the file, the designer's color workflow or your color workflow. If the values are what they should be for 289 and you're not getting the right color, or at least very close to it, your color management is messed up somewhere. If they are not close to what they should be for 289, and you have not worked with the file aside from strictly opening it or ripping it, the issue is on the designer's end.

I agree with you but changing the main spot colour is not the problem for me. it would be changing every step of the gradient as well. I dont think I can isolate everything and then the gradient recreates itself based on the data. Maybe I need the original file to accomplish that.., but like I said, it is one banner stand and do they want to pay me to recreate it or use their inhouse designers? I still think if I find a color pretty close on my printed charts and get her to input that pantone spot coated, then flexi should input the pantone from its own files...I hope!!!

 

[702 graphics]

Show her this

 

[Letterbox Mike]

I agree with you but changing the main spot colour is not the problem for me. it would be changing every step of the gradient as well. I dont think I can isolate everything and then the gradient recreates itself based on the data. Maybe I need the original file to accomplish that.., but like I said, it is one banner stand and do they want to pay me to recreate it or use their inhouse designers? I still think if I find a color pretty close on my printed charts and get her to input that pantone spot coated, then flexi should input the pantone from its own files...I hope!!!

I'm not saying actually change the color, jsut open the file in photoshop and mouse over or use the eyedropper on an area of the dark blue that's giving you trouble just to see what the CMYK vaules are. If it's a flattened tiff, which is sounds like it is, you can't change the colors anyway, if there's a gradient in it. I just want to know what the cmyk values are to determine if they are what they should be in the file. That is the very first step to determining where a color problem is. If it's bad in the file, it's going to print bad and you need to have the designer adjust the color on their end. If the color in the file is right, the problem lies with your color management.

If the color is wrong in the file and your printer is indeed printing correctly, the burden of correcting the file lies with your customer, or they need to supply you with a layered file so your designer can make the appropriate changes to get the correct color. If the color is correct in the file, the burden falls to you to correct your color workflow to get your printer to produce it accurately.

FYI, the CMYK values for 289 should be 100/76/10/65. If you have access to the layered file, you might try changing them to 100/80/5/69 to see what happens. If your numbers are nowhere near that, the file is bad.