Pantone matching for digital printing

[ProWraps™]

anyone else want to shoot themselves when you try to do this? what do you tell your customers? we have one that is killing us making us try to match PERFECTLY. i keep telling her its not going to happen. the color that WILL NOT match no matter what i do is 375c. its a BRIGHT chartruse that is so far out in the color spectrum, that spraying inks, will not come close. either too yellow, or too green. now its getting costly due to the amount of time, and materials we have wasted. any suggestions? oh and of course she says "oh we have never had a problem with it before!!!". eh.. yeah.

 

[ProWraps™]

yeah we are using mutohs. i wish i could get a green like that. that is almost what im looking for.

 

[cgsigns_jamie]

If you haven't already, print a Pantone chart from Flexi (your favorite application) and pick the swatch that is closest to the actual pantone color.

That's one of my favorite features of our Roland, the "Spot" color library that is built into the RIP. Just specify the color number and the RIP will convert it to the proper color every time.

 

[Jester1167]

I always show them the Pantone Color Bridge.

The one on the left is a SOLID SPOT COLOR which would be like a screen printers ink. The one on the left if 4 color process which is like a CMYK printer. The colors on our Roland usually are close the the spot color or halfway in between.

I have noticed when I convert a Pantone to CMYK the colors are less intense on screen as well as printed. You might mess with the RGB version instead. It is my understanding that printers have a wider color gamaut than the CMYK color pallet will allow?

 

[bob]

anyone else want to shoot themselves when you try to do this? what do you tell your customers? we have one that is killing us making us try to match PERFECTLY. i keep telling her its not going to happen. the color that WILL NOT match no matter what i do is 375c. its a BRIGHT chartruse that is so far out in the color spectrum, that spraying inks, will not come close. either too yellow, or too green. now its getting costly due to the amount of time, and materials we have wasted. any suggestions? oh and of course she says "oh we have never had a problem with it before!!!". eh.. yeah.

I point to the large Pantone chart on the wall that I printed on like media and tell them to pick a color they like. I tell them that that chart is the truth and all else is illusion. If that won't do then I guess they can go elsewhere.

 

[luggnut]

the color gamut on most printers are larger than the cmyk in the pantone bridge. i noticed on my mutoh it will hit colors closer than the patone color bridge shows as the cmyk equivalent. on some colors i have use the pantone process color palette out of flexi and have gotten some very vivid colors. if you are printing a raster from Photoshop or something then the color will be even harder to get. maybe if you change your rendering intents for rasters to relative colormetric? (if it is raster) i don't know that one for sure.

 

[Fuzzbuster]

the only way to fly is to print your own pmschart because thats what you CAN print, and let her decide on the color.

you may never get to the color she wants

her eyes might be wrong too!

good luck!!

 

[jasonx]

Are you viewing the printed samples outside or inside? Make sure your checking the color in the same environment it will be used in. Pretty amazing the amount of color shift from fluorescent lights to outdoors.

 

[luggnut]

if you print from flexi with no color correction for vectors... but what about rasters that are set to perceptual? your working color space (adobe rgb1998 or srgb) effects how the colors are rendered as well as the rips rendering intent and rgb color space settings. i would think Prowraps uses photoshop for most wraps and the pantone from flexi unless made in PS would not really be useful.

if you use adobe rgb 1998 and don't have everything down the line set up with adobe rgb ... if there is ever a conversion back to sRGB the colors will be muted.
most everything is set to sRGB by default so i started using that as my color space and the colors seem more vivid from PS files now.

then of course the media profiles....

 

[ddarlak]

Pretty amazing the amount of color shift from fluorescent lights to outdoors.

that has gotten me more times than i can count....

walk outside with the sample!

 

[bob]

Are you viewing the printed samples outside or inside? Make sure your checking the color in the same environment it will be used in. Pretty amazing the amount of color shift from fluorescent lights to outdoors.

That would depend on the lights. If you use 5600K or higher tubes, and you use enough of them, there's not just a whole hell of a lot of difference.

My shop is lit with 6000K T8 tubes in sufficient number and placement such that there is no shadow anywhere. It's pretty much indistinguishable from daylight. The T8's tend to be a bit more full spectrum than the old T12's but its the 6000K that really matters.

 

[jasonx]

Hey Bob,

That was my point to match the color in the right lighting conditions. If your lighting setup of you have a light viewing booth to match your colours then I guess that's fine.

 

[Checkers]

Without a proper color management "system" you're just shooting at a moving target with you eyes closed.
All of your equipment needs to be profiled and you need to use the profiles in a consistent manner.
There are training programs available from equipment manufacturers and private vendors and are well worth the investment. The one day class I took paid for itself in less than a month. Quality increased dramatically and mistakes with color matches went down to near zero.
Check out:
www.color.org
www.xrite.com

Checkers

 

[jdigital]

I agree with everyone here. There are a lot of variables involved with color matching for Digital printing. For instance, there is no Pantone Book created specifically for digital printing (and probably never will be) A good color match depends on Profiles, Software and color management. For me, I found that if you can verse yourself with LAB values and how to tweak them, it may be more consistent. Especially if you need to recalibrate your profiles or machines.

We are currently using ColorGate RIP software which has a module for Media Device synchronization. This is used if your printer somehow happens to start printing colors differently than the original settings. (for example.This could happen if the voltage to the machine changes,etc.) By using LAB values rather than CMYK or RGB, it is more reliable to acheive your original color when using this module.

Sorry to ramble about ColorGate.

Again, color management is a science. I agree that printing a pantone chart and showing your clients your printer capabilities is the way to go. If you need a specific color that's different than your pantone prints, then I would suggest trying LAB values and tweaking from there.

 

[Rooster]

A couple of things that will help you get out of gamut colors. Slow the printer down. A higher number of passes lets you lay down more ink. Obviously this affects your gamut size tremendously.

The other is to use relative colorimetric as your conversion type. Perceptual will create bright pleasing color, but it's nowhere near as accurate as RC when you're dealing with the outer edges of your available gamut. the way it renders out of gamut color and edge of gamut colors is significantly different. That why they use the Relative Colorimetric rendering intent for proofing and not Perceptual.

Checking that Pantone number against my in-house profiles shows the fastest my printer can run to hit it would be about 720 x 1080 24 pass (JV33, ES3 inks, CMYKCMLcLm). It's pretty darn close on faster speeds too, but it's not "in gamut". It's possible to hit that particular color on pretty much any decently white glossy media if you slow it down enough to lay down the required ink density. It could even be within your available gamut, but your rendering intent is shifting the hue.

Understanding color management and soft proofing allows you to see if a job is going to be a problem before you ever hit print. Creating custom profiles and being familiar with all aspects of the process (GCR, UCR, Rendering intents, Tone Compression Curves, etc.) means never having to reprint jobs.

 

[MachServTech]

Understanding color management and soft proofing allows you to see if a job is going to be a problem before you ever hit print. Creating custom profiles and being familiar with all aspects of the process (GCR, UCR, Rendering intents, Tone Compression Curves, etc.) means never having to reprint jobs.

101%

No color management = feeding the dumpster

 

[Fred Weiss]

How many here signed up for and attended the free webinar on color management given today by Castek Resources?

 

[Jim Doggett]

Pantone!!! I hate it. It's so irrelevant, today. A company chooses a Pantone color for their logo and noone will ever see that color. Their Web site is RGB, and they cannot control brightness contrast. Ditto on TV. Magazines are CMYK, as are brochures, newspaper and every other device a company uses to reach buyers.

Meanwhile, someone at a cocktail party actually get a business card with the Pantone color on it. Yippee!!!

Companies should standardize on RGB and CMYK, which will actually reproduce in the real world ... plus they don't have to pay for effing color chips and matching guides for their "designers."

OK, off my soapbox.

:^)

Jim

 

[ProWraps™]

Pantone!!! I hate it. It's so irrelevant, today. A company chooses a Pantone color for their logo and noone will ever see that color. Their Web site is RGB, and they cannot control brightness contrast. Ditto on TV. Magazines are CMYK, as are brochures, newspaper and every other device a company uses to reach buyers.

Meanwhile, someone at a cocktail party actually get a business card with the Pantone color on it. Yippee!!!

Companies should standardize on RGB and CMYK, which will actually reproduce in the real world ... plus they don't have to pay for effing color chips and matching guides for their "designers."

OK, off my soapbox.

:^)

Jim

i couldnt have said it better myself. imagine the smile on my face when i told the customer, none of it mattered since there will be a lam-shift once its laminated. i mean give me a break.

 

[mark in tx]

Profiling your systems will solve 98% of these problems.

The other 2% is just that digital printing will not simulate all Pantone colors everytime.

correctcolor.org

This is who does all my profiling.

 

[Rooster]

i couldnt have said it better myself. imagine the smile on my face when i told the customer, none of it mattered since there will be a lam-shift once its laminated. i mean give me a break.

That's why I profile stuff like IJ180 after lamination. Works great. The color only gets better in the deeper saturates (it loses a little on the brightest end of the scale). Who uses a 2mil cast without lam?