Avoid the havoc! Shy away from 4-color matching problems

We are witnessing rapid advances in the digital technology nowadays. Along with this advancement, new opportunities are dawning each day and the modern trappings of digital technology become more and more accessible to the people.

Photo processing labs have met new opportunities consequential to the digital technology’s advancement. Now, there’s the opportunity of working with the client’s digital job files and outputting them on digital color printers, either for client’s approval or for final production. These job files involve working with colors that you and your clients will be assigning to every graphic design element in your presentation. Text, borders, backgrounds and illustrations are among the aspects in job files considered as graphic design elements. To make them alive, colors are assigned to most or any of these elements.

Now, havoc arises when assigned colors in digital files become mismatched. Color matching is a common problem among those who outputs digital files. Knowing the aspects of the color matching problem may be able to help you eventually in solving it. Be aware of the following:

Desktop color’s confusing language – desktop computer systems helps you in creating, transporting and storing job files quickly and easily. But one of the realities that came up when more creative avenues for graphic designers came is that computers, color monitors and digital color printers made the simple task of color matching more difficult than ever.

Be aware and acceptable of the fact that the monitor, 4-color digital printers and 4-color printing presses each have different systems in achieving their color output. Simply put, they communicate colors differently so don’t expect that they will bring out entirely the same results. Color monitors transmit light to the eye through the combination of light-emitting red, green and blue (RGB) phosphors.

Meanwhile, digital color printers and presses output color using methods based on process 4-color printing with the four standard transparent ink pigments, the CMYK or cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

Mismatches in the spot color – don’t fall to the trap of specifying accent colors for type, borders and background using “spot” solid-ink color matching systems.

The solid-ink color matching systems correctly bypass the monitor but make the mistake of using a reference tool that does not jibe with the 4-color reproduction. Spot colors are those found in the Pantone Matching System (PMS) and they are indeed very tempting because they can be more vibrant and they have lots of variety. But if you specify these colors for output on 4-color printing devices, whether digital or conventional, you may be in for disastrous results. Don’t ever jeopardize production efficiency and client relationship by falling victim to this kind of color mismatch.
Imperfect color management – color is media dependent. Be open to the fact that the same color would always look different if it is conveyed in a different form, reflection or presentation. As such even electronic color management systems and color calibration tools can’t solve readily the assigned color matching problems.

By having enough awareness of these 4-color matching problems, you’d be able to solve any blunders readily. You and your client could also come up with a new standard and procedure and rely on proper reference tools to address the 4-color matching problem and never have to encounter it ever again. -30-

Kay Zetkin discovered the pleasure of writing through her daily journals as a teen-ager. Writing in it helped sort out her thoughts, relieve her feelings and record what she observes of the world. For her, writing is an effective tool to express your viewpoints... To write is already to choose, thus, writing should be done along with a critical mind and a caring soul. She hopes to become more professional, skilled and mature in her craft. Aside from writing Kay likes to spend her time reading. Reading lets her travel to far-off imagined places and situations. She also learns a lot from books, especially from the socio-political and historical ones. For comments and inquiries about the article visit http://www.uprinting.com