Reflective coming out wrong color on vehicle

[2B]

A police department near the shop had some printed reflective decals done to its vehicles and the coloring is wrong.

the coloring should be black/gray-scale, with the finished product coming out greenish.


after some investigation the material that was used, best to our knowledge is:
Orcal 5500 reflective vinyl
Be-Lamination from N glantz

We don't do a lot of reflective printing that has shadowing effects, ours is solid colors.

Not sure what would cause the coloring to be so off. Before we bid we want to know;
1 what causes this?
2 how is it corrected?

Thanks,

 

[HulkSmash]

pretty sure that's an optical illusion?

 

[SightLine]

I was thinking bad color profile.... greys are one of the toughest colors to hit without good profiles. That on top of a off/white to silver material and you are set for less than accurate color.

 

[2B]

sadly no, we took the pictures

 

[MikePatterson]

Faded grays are a PITA to say the least. Tweak the hell out of the color until it is right on that material. I hate black fades. I keep a bottle of Jack in my desk just for gray fades. The more I drink the better they look.

 

[Malkin]

easiest fix would be to set your CMYK file to only use grays that are built from values of K, and turn off any color correcting in your rip. This should force the printer to only lay down black ink, and should eliminate the greenish look.
You may need to do a little testing and darken the gray to suite your taste.

 

[2B]

Faded grays are a PITA to say the least. Tweak the hell out of the color until it is right on that material. I hate black fades. I keep a bottle of Jack in my desk just for gray fades. The more I drink the better they look.

Second that! IMO the preferred lubrication is a bottle of crown

 

[2B]

easiest fix would be to set your CMYK file to only use grays that are built from values of K, and turn off any color correcting in your rip. This should force the printer to only lay down black ink, and should eliminate the greenish look.
You may need to do a little testing and darken the gray to suite your taste.

Have not starting the test printing, never like testing on reflective too much $$$ even though it covered in the pricing still see the $$$ being thrown away with every test print.
This is why I push clients to do SOLID COLORS on reflective and have us start the design/coloring not coming behind and trying to match/recreate someone else working. To many factors to take into account with reflective. thanks for the reminder on the gray-scale. Will make sure production turns off the color correcting in Versa.

 

[Billct2]

We do these on the Edge and they look great, so I would think Malkin's suggestiuon is the solution.

 

[charissabuskirk]

easiest fix would be to set your CMYK file to only use grays that are built from values of K, and turn off any color correcting in your rip. This should force the printer to only lay down black ink, and should eliminate the greenish look.
You may need to do a little testing and darken the gray to suite your taste.

This works, when you're simulating a black and white only print. It does force the printer to only use the K inks and not combine CMY with K to make "black". I've found that if I create my gradient in Photoshop and export I don't have issues with it looking green-ish.

But like SightLine said, this is one of those colors you can always have an issue with if you don't have accurate profiles, color management. And, you're printing on a "white" material that's not white and your inks have opacity to them so it is going to throw the color off to begin with.

Good Luck!!

 

[2B]

We do these on the Edge and they look great, so I would think Malkin's suggestiuon is the solution.

Edge?
You referring to the edge of the k values?

 

[Marlene]

easiest fix would be to set your CMYK file to only use grays that are built from values of K, and turn off any color correcting in your rip. This should force the printer to only lay down black ink, and should eliminate the greenish look.
You may need to do a little testing and darken the gray to suite your taste.

I was thinking the same too.

Edge?
You referring to the edge of the k values?

no, the Edge is a Gerber thermo printer.

 

[2B]

I was thinking the same too.



no, the Edge is a Gerber thermo printer.

Thanks for the clarification,
we are a roland/summa/drytek shop

 

[Malkin]

Also, for solid greys (no gradients) you can use the versaworks swatches and it should print using only K.

Now rolands black eco-sol ink does not create a true neutral grey, but at least it doesn't color shift so much.

Greys have been the bane of my existence this week as well...

 

[omgsideburns]

If you're worried about the cost of printing on the reflective, print on some clear and hold it up to some light.. you'll be able to see which way your color is shifting.

Good luck.. Like someone else said, I would Edge that but that doesn't sound like an option for you.

 

[MikePro]

isn't BLine a calendared overlam? i'd go with cast-only for vehicle wraps/reflective grades.

 

[JoshLoring]

I use 5600 and it prints fine. If all else fails.. Remove yellow and add blue. Always makes for a better grey anyways. =) If you want a true grey, use cmyk and only k values with c,m & y set to zero.
Also, offgass 48 hours for grays with material unwound. This is a must!
Then.. If your like us you don't just have cmyk but c,lc,m,lm,y,k in your printer. This makes it even easier to hit grey with a little lc.