IS COLOR MATCHING EVEN POSSIBLE??

[Andy D]

I recently made and printed a file of color samples for a client. I went to print the color they chose eyedropping from the section they liked the most, and the color came out a shade darker. There was black text printed on the color but it seemed way off.

A few things to note:
The sample I printed on was on a previous roll
The sample was a CMYK formula.
The sample had no black text in it.
The final print (the one that did not match the sample) was darker by enough to be noticable.

This has happened to me on more than one occasion and I am considering just not doing this anymore. Is this even possible? I heard a software called ONYX works well for this?

A couple tips I had to learn the hard way when making color sample proofs;
1. Always do nozzle print test before you print the proof or actual print, to make sure you are not missing a bunch of nozzles and that there isn't any cross contamination of colors.
2. Save a copy or a portion of the color proof to have on hand and to file away for future prints.
3. Save the file you created for the color print test ( meaning the PDF, TIFF, EPS, etc. file)
And the rip file if you can, you can in Onyx, not sure about flexi.
4. Make notes or take screen captures of any color changes, profile used, etc.
5. Once the customer approves a color, have them initial your color proof.
I can't stress enough the importance of keeping hard copies of color proofs and filing them away, I have had vendors change their inks on me, work around bad print heads, computer crashes losing print files, ect.. And eventuallyl when you get a new printer you will really want them.