Need help with color calibration

[Santoro]

So I created a CPO that looks (in part) like this:


It prints in these blue hues on my screen and on my printer.  Notice the dark lines in side the blue outline.

Now I went to Kinkos and had it printed and it looks like this:


The background is shocking purple, even more than the photo depicts, and the dark lines are completely missing. The blue ring around the checked ring is very hard to see.

Besides the fact that Kinkos sucks, is this a color calibration problem?  How will I be sure this doesn't happen if I use one of the online services respected by the group?

[walls83]

another kinkos nightmare.


Its not something you did, its kinkos.  I would take it back and make them do it again for free.

[patrickl]

Bizarre that they completely lost the stiped background and the ring around the stick image. That's not a calibration issue or gamut problem. That's more like an incompetence issue  

I printed your fragment on my Epson 1270 (with pigment ink cartridge) and it came out looking quite reasonable.

The only real problem I see is the pure blue ring around the checked ring. You might have a gamut problem there. At least my printer printed that as a grayish version of the color intended and as a result it didn't stick out so much against the background. I scanned my print. Of course the scan is again not an exact match to the print (on my monitor the scan is a little more "murky" than the print), but it shows what I mean.

BTW, from what I understand printers like ClassicArcadeGrafix and Mamemarquees have much less trouble getting stuff like this printed properly. I remember there were some prpject announcements which used PixelHuggers blue style artwork and those came out fine. Even the pure blues looked good in those. Forgot the names of the projects though, sorry.

[mahuti]

Depends a lot on the competence of the print operator and the quality of inks they are using. Traditionally, that color of blue that you are trying to print is one of the most difficult for printers to represent accurately.

However... Kinko's sucks. Don't use kinko's.

[Santoro]

Well, at least I don't feel like this might be my fault.  But my question is this - if my crappy HP all in one can print the background as blue, and if patrickl can reproduce the blue, why would Kinkos' printers print it as purple? Without actively adjusting my image, it should have at least resembled blue!

Also, I don't understand how the lines could have disappeared.  These are part of the graphic that I imported into Photoshop, it's not like they could have hidden the layer or something.  

This is what I get for defending Kinko's in past threads.    They had worked OK for me in the past.

[Edit:]  It almost looks as though they cranked up the brightness so that it drowned out other elements?

[SpamMe]

What's it printed on, out of curiosity?

EDIT:
The reason I ask is that the last two jobs I had printed on vinyl at my local kinkos (same dark blues etc.) proofed very similarly to yours. Presumably it's the oversize printer they're using and not the material, but what do I know.
I ended up adding a curves layer to kick up the black plate and lighten the cyan plate a bit, and that helped enormously.

[Pixelhugger]

Scott at Mamemarquees.com can guarantee output of those blues.

I live in fear of this purple color shift. Luckily classicarcadegrafix.com and mamemarquees.com can avoid it... and will guarantee doing so. As Mahuti said, these blue tones are notoriously difficult to print. Generally luminous blues like these look fantastic in RGB but shift towards magenta (hence the purple) if not carefully converted when printing in CMYK colorspace.

Until very recently I only trusted CAG because of their admirable job reproducing these blues for the Tomorrowland, Mamestrosity, and SlikStik marquees.

However Scott at Mamemarquees just printed an artwork sample for me to compare against the "competition" and I was blown away by the colormatching he was capable of. He was able to reproduce the blues more closely than the "competition" and the subtle transitions through the blue gradients were perfectly smooth even when backlit (at least from what I could tell in holding the sample over light)

Just my 2 cents.  

[patrickl]

I don't think the background blue is so hard to print, but the bright blue ring is. Bright pure blue's are near to impossible to fake.

I guess that's why the blue background came out fine in my print even though my printer is not completely calibrated for the inks I use (I tried calibrating it, but a custom profile seemed even worse at handling out of gamut colors).

If you call up a color in photoshop you'll get a gamut warning and it will show the closest color that can be reproduced. For the darker blues there is not much difference, but for the bright one I got a color almost the same as the background color. But this is not much use if you don't have a color profile for the printer used (or something reasonably close to it).

[Santoro]

What's it printed on, out of curiosity?

It was glossy stock.  

I guess I will toy with the color mix and send it to mamemarquees.com

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

[RayB]

Kinko's is partly to blame, but so are you.

First, your artwork should be in CMYK mode. CMYK is the color format for printed material (whereas 'RGB' is meant for video screen displays). Since CMYK is for print, it's color limitations are based on what traditional inks can or can't print. Your bright blue ring for example is "impossible". (Though it should not have disappeared completely--It should have come out as a dull blue).

Open up your file and convert it to CMYK mode.

Now that covers your part of the blame, but the blues shifting wildly to purples, etc, is Kinko's fault. Get your money back.

~Ray

[patrickl]

For this type of application you should not convert your artwork to CMYK. It will look utterly drab if you do.

You do need to keep in mind that there will be some (possibly CMYK) conversion eventually, but you should let the printer take care of the conversion since they only know the color space they will be using.

[RayB]

For this type of application you should not convert your artwork to CMYK. It will look utterly drab if you do.

You do need to keep in mind that there will be some (possibly CMYK) conversion eventually, but you should let the printer take care of the conversion since they only know the color space they will be using.

HUH?? Maybe you've been dealing with printers who "take care" of newbies, but most will expect your art to fit the specifications that printed materials require. And #1 on that list is CMYK.

CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, blacK. Those are the primary ink colors used in print.

YES converting to CMYK will make some colors more dull looking. But that's how it's supposed to be. That's how it will look printed out.

Keep in mind, if you have the print-shop take care of it for you, they likely may add a fee for doing so for you. (They have to pay for their graphic designer's salary).

[Santoro]

Any others want to cast a vote in this debate?  

[patrickl]

Sorry, but you should simply not convert to CMYK (not for this application). Of course it will prevent differences between the printed artwork and what you see on screen, but the print will look like crap.

If you don;t want to take my word for it then maybe the FAQ of CAG will:

You should also design your artwork in RGB mode. If you design in or convert to CMYK your colors will all turn dull and look terrible. Leave the document in RGB mode which has a broader color range. Your monitor can show colors like luminous blues which cannot be reproduced. We will check for these before making your artwork. You can always create your document and sent it to us to check.

I guess I'm sorry I didn't quote this before since apparently they added a reference to the blue colors we are talking about here. Apparently they will check the file for you.

[RayB]

I guess I'm sorry I didn't quote this before since apparently they added a reference to the blue colors we are talking about here. Apparently they will check the file for you.

Where is that quoted from? THEY might check it for the client, but will a crappy chain like Kinko's check it for you? I doubt it.

I have a question for Santoro: What format did you submit the file in? It almost looks like you had layers and someone at the print shop turned some layers off. Could this be?

[Santoro]

Yes and no.  

The black stripes that are missing were created in Illustrator and exported with other elements to a PSD.  Would that keep the layers?  I thought it was sort of flattened bitmap that came in to Photoshop.

I don't have time now, but I will try to poke at the file later and see if I can turn it off.

[patrickl]

@Santoro
Can't you check the PSD file you sent? You can import the file in Illustrator if you only have that. Maybe you set a layer to be invisible or something.

Since you already paid for it you might as well let them redo the printjob. They should be able to produce slightly better results. At least comparable to our home printer prints. That light blue ring is never gonna work, but something closer to that background color should be possible. Just show them your proof and tell them that it should look "like that but better" since that was a simple home printer and their printer is of course far superior

@RayB
As I said, that quote is from the FAQ at ClassicArcadeGrafix.

The gamut of CMYK colorspace is way smaller than that of RGB. The printers used for this are not CMYK printers. They use probably more than 4 inks, perhaps wide gamut inks and what not. Their colorspace is much larger than default CMYK.

We can debate this forever since we are both right. You are right that converting to CMYK will prevent unexpected colors. On the other hand, converting to CMYK throws away a huge lot of color info and your print will look far worse than if you let the printshop convert the RGB file to the colorspace they use in their printer (of course assuming their colorspace conversion software is not written by a monkey and/or their operator is not too closely related to a monkey).

So you can basically choose between:
- having predictable results with a CMYK printjob that will almost certainly look dull and crappy
- find a printshop that uses a printer with a color space that better fits your needs where you will not being completely sure how it comes out, but which will look far better than the predictably poor CMYK printjob.

In fact, 2 shops with better printers/operators were already suggested. They will not be able to print all possible RGB colors (hence you can send them your file to have it checked), but the result will certainly look much better than if you convert to CMYK colorspace yourself.

[RayB]

@Santoro
On the other hand, converting to CMYK throws away a huge lot of color info and your print will look far worse than if you let the printshop convert the RGB file to the colorspace they use in their printer (of course assuming their colorspace conversion software is not written by a monkey and/or their operator is not too closely related to a monkey).

We're talking about Kinko's here...  

[patrickl]

@Santoro
On the other hand, converting to CMYK throws away a huge lot of color info and your print will look far worse than if you let the printshop convert the RGB file to the colorspace they use in their printer (of course assuming their colorspace conversion software is not written by a monkey and/or their operator is not too closely related to a monkey).

We're talking about Kinko's here...  

I though most people here were talking about not using Kinko's, but switching to CAG or Mamemarquees instead