Spectacular printing service for Arcade art. Must see!

[patrickl]

I see you are missing my point completely. I guess that's why you keep bringing in all these extraneous points. It might be that my native language is not english, but I hope I can explain it better this time:

1: CMYK means nothing by itself.  Working in CMYK will NOT guarantee a better result.

There ya go. I never said that. In fact I stated that, to my knowledge, CAG requests RGB artwork which was checked for problem colors in CMYK.

2:  Ask the printshop which color standard their equipment is calibrated to.  If they don't know, find a different printshop.

No printer can print all colors you can see in RGB. Notably not the "radiant" blues that people like a lot in their CPO designs. But indeed it would be nice to have some calibration info. More on that in point 3.

3: Unless your monitor is of reasonably high quality and properly calibrated, you will never have a clue whether the print you received was done improperly.  Basic calibration does not require a controlled studio, just a little care and knowledge on your part.

That's basically my question. "Did you calibrate your artwork, or did you just create it in RGB colorspace and send it to the printer". Better to understand if I phrase it that way?

4: Look at the picture of the 2 panel prints side by side, you'll see is one is blue and the other is purple. This is not a CMYK conversion issue.  But if you re-read my post, you''ll most likely be able to figure out some possible cause to the problem...

True, there might be more issues. One can start assuming one of a gazillion possible reasons for this, but a prominent one would be calibration problems. Or maybe the printer attempted to correct a problem about the washed out colors noted by Sasquatch based on the first attempt and corrected the calibration to be more colorful, maybe there are different printers ... etc etc etc

5: If this seems like too much for you to concern yourself with, just pay the $40 and cross your fingers.  Just try not to be too hard on the guy when you don't get what you expected.

I was trying to prevent that yes, but since you came bullying the whole thread to pieces I guess I'm not gonna get an answer no.


Bottom line is:
- A CMYK printer will never be able to reproduce all colors that can be displayed on a RGB monitor
- It's possible that above posters/buyers did not use any form of calibration or color proofing. Since I can't see them mentioning it anywhere at least it seems wise for me to ask if they did.
- If possibe, a conversion to CMYK (or indeed if available an appropriate better colorspace) in a computer program will bring out possible problem areas

Hence, I ask if they have taken this into account. Simple question to see if a very common problem has occurred. I just opted to accompany it with a picture rather then a lecture.

[Garrett]

Just wanted to add my 0.02 to the thread, I recently received my Defender CPO from these guys and it looks great.  Not completely perfect, but an outstanding value for only $35, and free shipping.  It's going to look very nice on my Mame cab.

[nipsmg]

Patrickl:

I think you're kind of taking RandyT's response the wrong way.

I, for one, and very happy to have read his response because I have very little to no knowledge of the printing processes.  I think a very natural question to any statement is WHY, and RandyT helped explain that.  You were very helpful in beginning to explain why RGB->CMYK conversions cause some problems with the perceived color that is being printed.  However, I think that randy helping to further explain the point did more harm than good, and the "erm.. no  " comment only succeeded in starting a flamewar in a very informative thread that people will most likely STOP reading when they get to something like that.

I think you both had some very informative posts on the subject.

Both of you should let it go  

--NipsMG

[patrickl]

Patrickl:
I think you're kind of taking RandyT's response the wrong way.

Well, indeed I felt his post was condescending, but if you think it wasn't then perhaps I took it the wrong way yes. In return he apparently took my rolleyes as a kick to the shin (which it wasn't meant to be either)

Both of you should let it go  

True

I guess I'll just have to sent "CAG" a custom job to see how it comes out.

[StLouisRod]

I will agree that your photos of the restored Centiped cabinet look great, but I have 3 questions:

1)  You had the marquee printed on vinyl?  If so, then when it is backlit, you'll end up see small pits from the back of the vinyl that distort the image.  Plus, vinyl just isn't quite translucent enough... it tends to whitewash the image.  I know because my first marquee was printed on vinyl at Kinko's.  

2) Why didn't you have them print the marquee on backlit film?  It only cost me $28.00 to have my Mame marquee printed there, and it looks way better and much more "arcade authentic" than the vinyl did.  It distributes the light evenly and doesn't  wash out the image.

3)  How can this classarcadegrafix site print COPYRIGHTED arcade images?  That would be illegal.  In fact, Kinko's will refuse to print copies of arcade marquees and sideart for just this reason!  Granted, I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but these guys are treading on thin ice.  I think Kinko's let my print slide since it was a collage of many different marquees, and they weren't paying close enough attention  

Here are quick pics of my backlit film marquee printed at Kinko's:

[Lance]

I will agree that your photos of the restored Centiped cabinet look great, but I have 3 questions:

1)  You had the marquee printed on vinyl?  If so, then when it is backlit, you'll end up see small pits from the back of the vinyl that distort the image.  Plus, vinyl just isn't quite translucent enough... it tends to whitewash the image.  I know because my first marquee was printed on vinyl at Kinko's.  

2) Why didn't you have them print the marquee on backlit film?  It only cost me $28.00 to have my Mame marquee printed there, and it looks way better and much more "arcade authentic" than the vinyl did.  It distributes the light evenly and doesn't  wash out the image.

He didn't have a marquee printed, it is a monitor bezel to mount on (between) the monitor plexi.