Printing onto different blanks

[Justin]

I've recently started printing the Chromaluxe panels and also the Aluminium panels. I've had some feedback from my customer noting that the colour matching is different between the two.

I would always expect to see a difference in print quality between the two different blanks but wonder if I should be doing more work to create profiles specifically for metals etc? Should I be making slight corrections to images prior to printing?

I've been thinking about moving over to Ricoh recently so the above is a concern as I would prefer not be be using this with my own profiles, opting for the Powerdriver. I used the Powerdriver years ago and found the different blank settings made little difference, maybe this has been improved over the years though? I assume the Powerdriver simply selects a pre-defined profile for each blank?

[Paul]

Whats the tim gap betwen those two printed blanks bud?

[Justin]

Both printed at 50 seconds Paul.

[Paul]

No no have you pressed one after the other? Or the time gap was a few weeks?

[Justin]

Lol Sorry Paul. Printed same day. I think the biggest concern is that the customer will order both items and expect them to match.

[WorthDoingRight]

Well, the Ricoh powerdriver has different settings for a range of different substrates so there must be a noticably diffference between a number of items. I think ultimately Paul will say you need an ICC profile for each substrate if the difference is noticably.

[socialgiraffe]

i think this is probably a problem that a lot of people have.

Essentially its a bit like printing on two different types of paper. If you print the same image on a glossy piece of paper and then print the same thing on a matt you will get colour variation between the two. In the same way I would have presumed that two different dye sub items that have both been coated seperately and probably with two different types of coating will present different results.

Even if your ICC profiles are set up perfectly you may still get the variation unless the supplier of the blanks can provide two items with exactly the same coating. I doubt if that would be possible.

I think this is one of those things were a little bit of customer training is in order. You will need to try and explain that different items do produce different results due to their make up and the reaction of the dye sub ink to each item. Good luck with that

The above might be total rubbish and guys like Paul may have the perfect solution

[Paul]

In this case both should look this sames as long there was no big diferenc in heat used. I only done second icc for slates as the diference was huge. With other blanks i try to play i photoshopinstead of doing separate icc just for coasters so i think we have to leave with it and accept the difference...


Ps. I remember placemates needed new icc and i think JSR created one. So wortho ask him it helped.

[pisquee]

Different substrates do affect the final print colour - we noticed this on the pigment ink printing we do onto different papers along with on different sublimation products, which in the end is why we bought our own profiling system

[WorthDoingRight]

@Paul - as it would be quite difficult to profile a ceramic mug can I ask what substrate you use for profiling normally? Is is the A4 white sublimation aluminium sheets?

I have this Spyderprint 3 that I wish to try out and was wondering what I should try it on.