How to specify a colour to a printing company

[Davidm]

I'm about to get a thousand or so membership cards printed by a commercial print shop and want to be able to specify the background colour to be used. Just emailing a sample template with the colour I want has proved to be a bit hit and miss in the past, the way a colour is displayed on my monitor isn't necessarily the way it appears when they print the cards.

Is there a more definitive way of achieving this (eg. giving an RGB or CMYK reference, or referencing some standard of a web site), other than printing off a sample that shows what I want and then posting that to them?

(they have a template of the card layout and contents - as field codes, I just supply and Excel file with the data).

[Andy Burns]

Find someone who sells powder-coated items (e.g. radiators, garage doors, aluminium windows) and pick a pantone colour from one of their sample charts, specify that as the spot colour to your printers.

[Bob Eager]

[Nightjar]

For consistency in printing, you need to specify a Pantone colour:

However, as it says there, the on screen colours are only a guide. For accurate matching, you need to have a colour set:

[Nightjar]

The powder coaters I know use RAL colours.

[Andy Burns]

You're right, I couldn't find the swatch card I was given, but have dug it out now and they are RAL, will any printers take RAL instead of Pantone? There are some websites that offer Pantone/RAL/BS colour "conversion"

[The Natural Philosopher]

Pantone

But don't rely on your monitor to render it correctly

Used to be swatches of pantone colors. Maybe your printer has one

[Davidm]

Just this bit then:

Bloody 'ell, they're expensive! I think just referencing their colour code will be close enough. Thanks.

[Andy Burns]

But then you're back to how pantone colours look on your monitor v.s. how the printing company's ink will look on paper

[Robin]

Unless you are dead set on choosing a precise colour you could just go to a decorating centre and pick one of their BS 4800 colours which all have Pantone codes. Of course their colour cards aren't as good as the swatches you buy but it's a cheap option :)

[polygonum]

And for accuracy you need the right Pantone swatches...

Possibly you could improvise by getting a swatch from a paint shop (any make) - if you can find one that looks right. Or an existing card that happened to be right. Or the colour specification used when the design was first done. Ideally the swatch would have all the maker's details printed on it but, even failing that, any decent print shop would have a photospectrometer.

[Nightjar]

If you have a printers you can visit, they will normally allow you to look at their swatch card and choose the colours you want.

[Davidm]

That's a good idea, thanks. I'm not looking for precision, just something that's gives a bit more definition than simply saying "light blue" (for example).

Thanks for all responses.

[Brian Gaff]

I've heard from others that in the end a sample of the existing item is the only way it can be done reliably, assuming the man or woman is not colour blind of course. The problem is trying to relate a colour on a screen which is an illuminated device, with a card which is just a reflective device. Brian

[Nightjar]

ISTR that art shops used to sell sheets of paper in single Pantone colours. A browse through those might find the colours wanted.

[NY]

I believe that Pantone is the system used for defining colours in the printing trade. The difficulty is how the customer identifies the Pantone parameters which match the colour that he wants...

If you specify the RGB (emissive) values of a colour, that ought to be enough for a printer to work out what Pantone values to use for the (reflective) printing process.

[harry]

[superman123]

I faced a problem with color reporting , That happened because my computer monitor had some issues with color correction. If we are suing a digital medium we will face such issues. Use industrial color codes to avoid such situations

[The Natural Philosopher]

This is of course a huge problem that anyone who goes from computer->print has to face.

And opens a whole can of worms.

In bright sunlight my house looked green, At dusk it was clearly a creamy yellow. The paint was called 'sea silver'

Even a test print on an industrial laser printer won't guarantee the right colours if you then move to 4 colour ink printing, and nor will two people see the same colour in the same way. Remember That Dress?

Worse, using RGB to approximate the spectral density of a single pigment doesn't work either.

The short answer is there is no answer. Colour reproduction is always an approximation. But some approximations are better than others

All you can do is try out varuious approaches to see which one works best. Pantone is a fairly reliable one if the printer uses inks and uses a pantone ink to spread a background.

If you are into 4 color CYMK printing all bets are off. If the printer is co-operative ask him to print a range around the desired one on the laser, and see which one is closest.

I have used Corel Draw or the GIMP to prepare RGB or CYMK test prints to see what my color laser actually produces in order to match its output to a desired logo color.

Of course that's my laser only

[rick]

Whenever I need something manufactured in a specific colour I quote the RAL code The equivalent for printing is the Pantone colour

You can get sets of swatches that shows the colours ......... unfortunately looking at them on a monitor is not the answer unless you have a calibrated monitor