The Colour Matching Challenge

Colour Matching is the process of assuring that a color on one medium remains the same when converted to another medium. This is extremely difficult because different media use different color models. Color monitors, for example, use the RGB model, whereas process printing uses the CMYK model. As color desktop publishing matures, color matching is gaining more and more attention. The most recent Windows and Macintosh operating systems include a color management system (CMS) to assist in color matching.

We are often coming up with creative ways to problem-solve various colour issues, like trying to match stationary. Matching your Colour Logo and Corporate Colours onto your digitally printed letterheads with your 4 colour printed compliments slips and your offset press printed business cards can be a huge headache!

So how do we do it? We recommend you print as much stationary as you can using the same print processes - for example, we often gang-up our letterheads, which means printing more than one letterhead design onto a larger sheet. We can lay-up four to six letterheads on a large sheet and print as many sheets as are required.

(This is often why the pricing for larger quantites becomes cheaper per unit when you get into large amounts of colour printing - because it is the inital setup and layup that incur the costs, and from then on it just prints ... and prints ... and prints, allowing us to stagger the costs.)

We recommend you print you compliments slips on this same run as your letterheads, ensuring the colours are set to the same CMYK Values. Because you will be printing on the same paper through the same press (even colour presses can make a difference to your colour!) that will take away the risk of another factor in our colour matching battle - paper stocks! All the different paper finishes, colours - there are many shades of white that are all called white - texture and thickness that can all play a part in making minute colour changes that will cause you nightmares. On this same letterhead run I would also put your notepads, to be trimmed and padded later, and any other printed material that you can put together in a bulk order.

Business cards are best done on an offset press, and we print a ganged-run (called 'ganged' because of the amount of cards all kept together on a large worksheet) of these cards, at least one print run a week. The colours don't shift much on these runs and if colour matching is a priority for you - we can run swatches down the side of this run with small squares of similar colour breakdowns to what you are trying to achieve, so we will know what to expect when we run the full business card job.

View our site and the various card types we offer at www.patchprint.co.nz

And for the cheapest printing in New Zealand go to www.clickprint.co.nz

If you know exactly what I'm on about with Offset and Digital Printing you must be in the Printing Industry so come on board and apply for Trade Access at our Wholesale Printing site www.theproductionhouse.co.nz

Yes we are a creative fun-loving bunch of design and print fanatics but we definately like the result to be what we expected, our colours to be bright and vibrant, our toner coverage to be even and smooth, our inks to show continuous smooth colour.

Surprises are for birthdays - not for printers.