Color matching

Color <span>matching</span>

Colors can also change in a game of visual “telephone” as images move from one device and monitor to another and land in front of different artists and designers along the way. The original and the final products may be off by an entire shade if too many links are in your design chain. Colors will look different based on not only the hardware but also the many various settings such as brightness and contrast.

When the time finally comes to take your project to a printer, the type of technology and materials they have availablelike inks and mediaadd more variables to how your image might turn out. Laminates on a medium, the ink types and even something seemingly harmless like a medium’s texture will have some perceivable effects on how colors end up appearing on a finished product.

The vast array of variables at play can be almost frightening. There’s no need for that, however, as our experts at SpeedPro are here to ensure you get the proper colors translated over to your completed project.

There are two major factors that will help us in our color matching process: Color profiles and Pantones.

Color Profiles

Design and art files created digitally usually are set up with one of two primary color profiles: RGB, which stands for Red/Green/Blue, or CMYK, which stands for Cyan/Magenta/Yellow/Black. Despite this, not every single color that we can see in reality can be perfectly reproduced with either system and colors will, therefore, vary subtly as images move from monitor to printed material. 

The RGB profile is based on the optical colors of light and is the color definition that is utilized by digital devices like cameras and monitors that ultimately gives us the images we see through those devices. 

CMYK, on the other hand, is the color profile for pigments–the colors reflected by materials in real life. These are the four colors used in “4-color printing” that many fans of graphic design will easily recognize from the colorful pages of comic books from the 1930’s on.

Mixing RGB light creates white light while mixing CMYK pigments creates black. Because of this, a designer is able to make colors on a screen using the RGB profile that can be difficult to reproduce accurately by a CMYK printing process. Despite that, it is better to design in RGB because you can create the best possible version of your design. This is why it’s best to design from the start using the CMYK color profile. However, if you bring us an RGB file, our engineers will take your digital files through printer-specific programs to convert them into CMYK. 

Rainbow grid
Hot dog stand

Pantones

Sometimes called PMS, the Pantone Matching System (PMS) consists of about 200 uniquely-identified colors. This is a standard accepted worldwide, therefore allowing printers all over to match precise colors and keep an image consistent throughout all steps of a printing process. (Learn even more about Pantones here.)

Due to the complexities of digital-to-physical color mapping, we can’t guarantee that we can hit all spot colors. However, if you can provide Pantone reference numbers that will be helpful as we proceed with color matching and hard proof creation for you to approve. This smaller version of your project will show you the actual colors on the final materials and inks.

Powerful Color-Creating Printer Technology

SpeedPro’s digital printers provide exceptional quality. We can print up to 1440 dpi with inks that can last up to 4 years outdoors, even without lamination. Our waterproof, solvent-based, UV-resisting inks even resist fading. 

Even though color matching can be challenging, the combination of high-quality production with our ability to offer some of the best color matching services has given SpeedPro the distinction of being a G7 Master Qualified large-format printer that ensures color accuracy. We utilize the best equipment available to get your project to within 95-100% of desired color accuracy: color management software, densitometers and spectrophotometers are just a few tools our engineers employ to get you one of the best results in the large format printing market.

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