Color matching

[david m. baker]

Howdy:

There are a lot of good responses here, and I won't contradict any of the advice offered here per se, but I will offer my own insight on the subject.

1) You should consult with your client and explain that laminating is a lot like adding a spot varnish--color will shift in both cases. Because of all the variables involved with laminates (i.e. temperature, speed, mil, etc.), I don't know of a very reliable way to profile color for laminated substrate. I think it's best, therefore, to inform client up front and set expectations accordingly. Which leads me to...

2) Why laminate? Xerox offers a polyester substrate called NeverTear that is water- and grease-proof, has BETTER durability than laminated paper, and there is ZERO color shift. Faster time to market, one less step in finishing, and better quality all around. I think that's a win for everyone.

Hope this helps!
-d-

[viswanaathan_r]

Hi,

Thank you all for the valuable guidance. As suggested by the forum, we printed a swatch and half laminated. After a couple of iteration, we could get the color after lamination only near to the Pantone. This has been approved by the print buyer and I am printing the job now.

Appreciate the help from this community. Thanks once again.

[PAI]

The colors will shift with lamination. But you specified matte lamination. Matte lamination can be made several ways. The older method was to use a filled polymer. (usually PET) With filled polymer, they add matte particles to the to the polymer as it is being made. So the matte is in the polymer. Different manufacturers of the matte polymer may have different looks. Also since the matte is all the way through the film, filled polymers usually add a lot of haze. Since the matte is all the way through, the thicker the base film, the hazier it can get. The advantage is that filled films are scuff resistant.

Another method of creating matte films is a coated matte. It is basically your standard gloss laminate with a matte coating on the film. This is done when we produce the laminate film. We add a matte coating to the surface of the film. The advantage to this is that the matte can be the same for any type or thickness of laminate that you choose. The matte coating is put on in the same thickness / density for all types of film. This should give a more consistent look and more consistent color shift.

Many printers will have a small pouch type lamiantor and some sheets of matte film for proofing. That way you can match after lamination and see exactly what you will get.

Tony

[walterz]

Lukas mentions trying to create a print profile that defines the final matte laminated print results. Was that successful? Was it helpful?

Others like oldschool and PAI (Tony) allude to the many variables that could come into play (laminating temperature, speed, heat, variation in the plastic lam itself, etc) that would make such a profile ineffective. We were just considering making our own Matte Lam profile but would like to hear of pitfalls that we may encounter in doing so. Anyone willing to share their experiences with building and using a Matte Lam Press profile to produce proofs that better match the final laminated result - pros/cons/effectiveness?

Or could it be as simple as laminating the Epson proofs? (I have trouble believing that we would experience the same colour shifts on inkjet proofs as we do on litho printed sheets - different types of inks, different proportions (7c process vs 4c process), etc. (I'll run some tests of this today.)

[walterz]

Okay, summarizing the results of my testing yesterday would be that using an ICC profile (made from a matte laminated press sheet) will help simulate the colour shift that occurs from laminating. However one still has to deal with the sheen of the proof.
Matte laminating Epson proofs does apply the appropriate sheen but as I suspected it does not produce the same colour shift. All colours retained their hue, it was only the saturation that was affected.
So it seems that maybe the solution will need to be a combination of both, profile based alteration to simulate the colour shift and laminating the proof to show the correct sheen.
One other angle I will explore is proofing on a matte proofing stock. My suspicions are that the proof will not look as glossy (obviously) but it will still not appear the same as when matte laminated.

Walter