ColorCrest SignMeUpGraphics Hi all. Wow. Thanks for al the input and offers to check the profile. And yes we are printing two layers of white on a "print-ready" aluminum. This seemed odd when I first started but the difference in quality after printing the layers of white as a "primer" is very noticeable. We are producing graphics strictly for museums and art galleries and quality/color accuracy is valued far more than speed and cost savings. After much back and forth with Onyx, they determined that I was using the incorrect swatch format for printing our ICC swatch. Despite what common sense would suggest (in my opinion at least), even though we are printing with a printer and profile that uses CMYK+Spot we should not be using the "CMYK+Spot" format to print the ICC profile. The recommended option from Onyx is "extreme accuracy" because we are only using the white as a flood fill. This is 100% in line with what
Pauly had suggested so kudos to him. Unfortunately earlier I was nervous about taking the time to print and scan an all new set of swatches in fear that I would get similar results. All that said, Onyx said the profile I generated originally (w/ CMYK+Spot charts) is probably fine and that I can ignore the "expected" value being so off. I will be redoing the ICC scan anyway just for peace of mind. I'm tired from battling this issue all day so I'll post the summary from Onyx below:
"After speaking with our Engineer, the reason why his expected was looking different than what his xrite was actually measuring is because he was printing the CMYK+Spot swatch which will mix in the Spot Color that is displayed, the entire "expected" column is going to show the spot color mixed in with the colors in the swatch. He chose a lighter blueish/grayish color as the spot color display in Spot Color Setup in his profile. So that color will mix in with the CMYK and that will affect the "expected" column, because of that you can expect it to look different than the measured.
Our Engineer mentioned that the customer could technically ignore the fact that his expected looks different than his measured and just continue to finish the profile because what he is measuring is correct. It doesn't matter in this instance if the measured matches the expected or not, what he is measuring is correct. The customer said they did in fact finish the profile and the job did print accurately.
However the best practice is to use flood fill with one of the "normal" swatches such as the extreme accuracy swatch or anything below that and what that will do is flood fill with white on the bottom and then the CMYK on top. He just needs to make sure he is choosing white as his spot color display in spot color setup.
But the reason why his expected looked different than what he measured is because he chose to print cmyk+spot for his swatch and it mixed in the spot color display with the cmyk. Instead he should choose the extreme accuracy or anything below and make sure flood fill is selected with the spot, make sure his spot color is white (in spot color setup) and print the swatch that way. That would be the best practice.
The display color (spot color) doesn't have to be white, but white is probably best to avoid confusion"
TL;DR I used the wrong format when printing my ICC swatch. I should've used Extreme Accuracy.
