What the heck is a color palette

[Stormyj]

Hi all. I have recently started using a Roland sc540 and have never really ever considered the use of color palettes since I only used die cut vinyl for the last 4 years or so. Someone would say, "I want blue lettering." Ok, hows this blue. I am now printing and have noticed that a lot of manufactures have their own color palettes. I know you can load them in my software, but have never really seen the need for it. Can someone, I hope a few, explain why I would need to load different palettes and what exactly they are used for. Time for some schoolin!! Its late, so will probably read replys tomorrow morning. Thanks
Jim

 

[player]

Gamut is all the colors. Your monitor can show more colors than you can print, for example. The range you can print is your printers color gamut. Or perhaps pallet. A 6 color printer has a wider gamut than a 4 color printer.

Printers have used the Pantone Matching System long before computers. Pantone is an industry standard. You would be wise to get a Pantone process to 4 color swatch book. Swatches are a collection of colored squares like you find in a paint store.

Also find different swatch libraries and print them out. This is for when someone wants blue, you can show them the blue swatches. Because your printer printed them, the blue they pick will be the blue they get. Some people are picky about this.

Roland has color swatches you can print from Versaworks and also import them into most design software.

Consistently printing the colors you want is much more difficult than it would seem. It is probably 90% of the job.

 

[vid]

oooooo one of my pet peeves - not using a color palette.

Gamut is all the colors. Your monitor can show more colors than you can print, for example. The color range you can print is your printer's color gamut. Or perhaps palette. A 6 color printer has a wider gamut than a 4 color printer.

Printers have used the Pantone Matching System long before computers. Pantone is an industry standard. You would be wise to get a Pantone process to 4 color swatch book. Swatches are a collection of colored squares like you find in a paint store.

Also find different swatch libraries and print them out. This is for when someone wants blue, you can show them the blue swatches. Because your printer printed them, the blue they pick will be the blue they get. Some people are picky about this.

Roland has color swatches you can print from Versaworks and also import them into most design software.

Consistently printing the colors you want is much more difficult than it would seem. It is probably 90% of the job.

Yup! The underlying principle for using a color palette is being able to deliver a consistent product.

And for a long story:

Back in the olden days... even nowadays I still use vinyl manufacturers' color palettes as part of my design workflow. I do it for continuity and documentation.​

It stems from an incident working with two other designers and the color blue. I was tasked with changes to existing signs, and a few new new ones, for one of our customers. The previous sign criteria simply read "blue, red and and black vinyl." o_0

Being new to the shop, I was rather proud that I could figure out which black, but the red and the blue were the stumpers for me. The colors in the previous file had been pulled from CorelDraw's default RGB palette. Pretty much a red and a blue... based on that, and the previous designer's recollection of what it probably was, I completed the task.

I'm sure you can guess the outcome and the boss' demeanor when the installer called with questions about why the blue didn't match...
​

Since that time, all sign criteria had to have the manufacturer, style, and color number written into the page. All colors used in the design were pulled from vinyl manufacturers' palettes to:​

1. 
   [*=1]consistently use the same color blue, red, et al, for specific vinyl color call-outs in customer proofs and production art,
   [*=1]document the color to be used within the file. (The palettes list the vinyl color by name when selected, and palettes typically are separated by style --- cast, calendared, translucent, etc. - This helps to determine whose butt gets roasted on ill-fated jobs,)
   [*=1]reduce the number of colors from which a customer may choose.

​

While I've not had perfect luck matching vinyl colors in a print file, it does offer a base point for adjustments, if needed.​

Now the palettes that come with printers... yeah, I don't no nothin' 'bout that. I suspect that those palettes are optimized for the specific printer's color gamut. I use PMS spec'd colors for the bulk of my design work. I'm from a print background and I have little desire to learn another color system when Pantone works for me. It's consistent and sustainable.

Then, as player pointed out, rather than using an application's default palette with a customer, one can hand them the swatch book or printed color chart and tell them to pick a color when they want something more primrose-y... ​

 

[5Star]

Oooo...colour matching...sometimes I think World Peace would be easier! :Big Laugh

Heck, it's a miracle we get as close as we do to matching.

Our clients scan stuff on RGB scanners and create artwork on RGB monitors selecting PMS colours, then we have to match their colours with 4 colour process printers (or 6 or 8 or more) - all of this on wildly differing media! Let alone the differing gamuts of aqueous, solvent, UV on various brands of equipment.

The above posters are right - find yourself a PMS & tint chart (use the search function on this forum) and print one out.

But you must be absolutely 100% consistent when applying these colours - changing colour spaces in your design application or RIP software will alter how these colours print out. So once you have your settings sorted, don't mess with them!

If you do decide to print out a chart, write on it all the settings you can - resolution, uni/bi-directional, ICC profiles on/off etc - so you have a chance of duplicating the results.

Take care if your clients want you to match colours precisely - their application settings need to be consistent. One of my clients is the State Art Gallery who we print colour matched panels for. We were getting mis-matching of colour even though our machine settings were the same all the time.

Turns out that they produced the artwork (InDesign) on three Macs that had their Preferences differing, plus their settings in Press Ready PDFs weren't the same either. They'd bought the third Mac after I'd sent them the settings for the first two, but forgot to tell me about the new Mac. So you can see you can't change a thing if matching is important.

Stuff like this is the reason why my liver is many years older than the rest of me...