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The World of Color

Ensuring customer satisfaction with accurate color measurement and management.

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ACCURATE COLOR MATCHING for a wide-format print shop is critical to its long-term success.

More often than not, customers are bringing in tangible items, such as a piece of fabric or a tile backsplash, as color examples for printers to accurately match. It’s happening all too often that a customer arrives without a specific standardized color or any measurable color reference information. And, unfortunately, without that it can be difficult for a print shop to accurately match the color.

The important thing to realize is that color is subjective — it’s a very complex issue and can be difficult to replicate with factors such as media, light, monitors, and more. Even if a color looks like an accurate match to the naked eye, it doesn’t ensure it’s a truthful match with measurement data to support it. Therefore a printmaker cannot guarantee replication for future orders.

Color management tools, such as the Epson Auto Chart Reader, can help print shops accurately define and measure color. With the right tools, print providers should be able to accurately reproduce a customer-provided color, regardless of the source.

Regardless of the wide-format printer technology or substrate, it’s essential that a print shop implement a color management workflow to accurately reproduce colors required by customers for final applications. Implementing a color management workflow that measures and reproduces color reduces the need for reprints, enhances customer satisfaction, and helps to drive future proofing revenue. This article will cover the basics of implementing a color management workflow and how to use color data to accurately reproduce color in the moment, as well as store that data for future use,. This ensures color fidelity, from print to print and job to job.

Regardless of output type, accurately reproducing color is essential to meeting customer expectations and upholding brand integrity. For example, company logos must match brand guidelines and output color needs to match a designer’s artistic vision.

The 3 M’s

The three M’s are color matching, measurement, and management. Every person experiences color differently, based on physics and the observation of light interacting with that object. So how is a printing professional expected to accurately recreate color?

First, it’s best to understand that manual color matching and color measurement are completely different in terms of workflow and predictability over time. Color matching is the art of recreating a color once — to the best of your abilities — without measurement. This color is based on what the printmaker and the customer perceive as a match, and usually requires multiple rounds of edits. In an ideal scenario, the printer may produce a color that initially looks perfect. But in different light sources, or on different substrates, it may not be an ideal match. While customers may or may not notice a difference, manual color matching is not a reliable, long-term solution.

In comparison, color measurement is the process of quantifying the amount of light reflected and absorbed by a color sample. Color measurement is more precise than manual color matching because people perceive color differently. Color measurement is the action taken to identify color and color management is the workflow set in place to ensure accurate color reproduction. By using a spectrophotometer, print shops are able to scientifically measure color and implement a workflow around color data to store and apply it for future projects.

For print shops using multiple printers, consistent color across all devices is essential. When two identical printers produce the same graphic on the same substrate, the color output should match precisely.

What’s Color Data?

To accurately implement a color management workflow, a print shop will need a color measurement device. One example is a spectrophotometer that measures color by using a consistent light source to shine light on the sample and measure its spectral response. These values are used to build profiles, identify and translate color using RIP software for accurate color output, and to fully implement a color managed system.

Spectrophotometers provide L*a*b* values. L*a*b* emulates the visual experience of a standard observer, expressing color as three values: L* for perceptual lightness, and a* and b* for the four unique colors of human vision: red, green, blue, and yellow. It is not based on the characteristics of any device and acts as a translator in color engines to convert from one color space to another. The result is the translation and identification of color from a tangible object that can be reproduced through a color managed workflow.

A wide variety of spectrophotometers are available, ranging from inexpensive handheld devices to upward of tens of thousands of dollars for larger benchtop solutions. These options allow print shops to find the solution that best suits their workflow and project needs. There even are a few printer manufacturers that have developed proprietary offerings to complement their wide-format solutions.

When looking for a spectrophotometer, consider your unique use cases to ensure the device easily fits within the workflow and can measure compatible materials. Additionally, specific industry applications — such as the automotive space — require a spectrophotometer that takes into account very unique circumstances, such as the level of reflectivity in car paint.

In addition to measuring a single color, print shops can use a spectrophotometer to measure the difference between two colors. This difference in color data is called the Delta E value. The devices also are helpful in identifying a match between two colors, providing designers and customers with valuable data for color communication.

Once a color is measured, what you do with the data can make or break your color matching success. Collecting color information prior to printing allows print shops to create ICC profiles, as well as provide accurate information to clients, including confirmation of color reproduction capabilities or presenting the closest color that the printer is capable of producing.

Using Color Data

The success of color matching relies on effectively using the data measured from a spectrophotometer. In the print workflow, this data is applied through RIP software, such as spot color replacement, to ensure the color measured matches the printed output.

Once the color data is recorded and transferred to a RIP software, a printer can ensure consistency and accuracy across a range of large-format printing applications. Accurately reproducing color is essential to meeting customer expectations and upholding brand integrity. Company logos must match brand guidelines, and an output color matches a designer’s artistic vision whether the application is for a banner, sign, vehicle wrap, packaging, promotional product, or more. When a client orders a variety of output, such as banners and matching promotional items for a company event or trade show, the color needs to be consistent regardless of the substrate.

At the end of the day, effectively managing color can make or break the success of a print shop. Color accuracy builds trust with clients, reduces waste by limiting reprints, and improves overall efficiency. This leads to faster turnaround times and higher satisfaction.

Related Terms

  • Spot Color
    A solid color created uses premixed ink that’s applied directly to a page in printing, rather than being created by mixing other inks. Spot colors often are used when a few specific colors are needed, and when color accuracy is important. Some print processes cannot use additional premixed inks and instead handle spot colors by mixing inks from the available inkset.
  • Color Matching
    Color matching is the art of manually recreating a color once, to the best of your abilities, without measurement.
  • Color Measurement
    The process of measuring color leveraging calibrated color measurement tools that quantify the amount of light reflected or absorbed by a color sample.
  • Color Management
    The workflow system in place that maintains color consistency across all devices during color-space conversion from RGB to CMYK. Through effective color management, you can control the output of multiple presentations of an image on various substrates.
  • Color Matching Systems
    A streamlined approach used to ensure consistency and accuracy of colors across different devices and substrates. These systems help standardize color so they appear the same on different mediums, such as fabrics, printed materials and plastics, or in different lighting conditions.
  • L*a*b*
    A device independent color space defined by the International Commission on Illumination that expresses color as three values: L* for perceptual lightness and a* and b* for the four unique colors of human vision: red, green, blue and yellow.
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