Are you kidding me?

[MattG]

Hey all! Quick question. Not sure where this belongs...but...

If y'all had one of your good (decent) customers walk into your shop with 300 paint swatches that they wanted scanned and color corrected, what would you do? There are a bunch of swatches that are just not going to match in CMYK so I'm just curious....Thanks!

 

[arossetti]

Explain to them the limitations and then quote them 2x as much as you think it will cost.

 

[pippip]

Wow.... thats a good one alright.

I'd just work out what it realistically is going to cost (ignoring that they're a "good" customer) and add on 50%.
Politely give them the figure and suggest the alternative of they pick from your pantone book.

 

[gordo]

If y'all had one of your good (decent) customers walk into your shop with 300 paint swatches that they wanted scanned and color corrected, what would you do? There are a bunch of swatches that are just not going to match in CMYK so I'm just curious....Thanks!

In my experience, paint swatches that are simulated using offset inks are not done by scanning samples.
They are done by acquiring the L*a*b* values of the paint samples and then using that info to build screen tint combinations from a press profile to do the simulations. Depending on your capabilities the simulations will be based on a 4/C or an extended process ink set.
The screen build simulation information is then passed on to whoever is laying out the document so that they can specify their document's screen tint builds.
Also, these are often printed using FM screening to create smooth patches of color without moiré that look like patches of actual paint.
Note that, offset inks react differently than the paint hues according to the spectral composition of the lighting that the swatches will be viewed under. Normally there's a caveat to that effect in the mouse print of the swatch book.
Pantone books have zero value in this kind of work.

 

[dgman]

Great feedback Gordo! Off Topic but quick query...your mention of the word "moiré" had me thinking. Is this not an objectionable pattern that occurs when a scan is made from a previously printed image without a de-screen applied? Did you mean to say FM screening is used to avoid the rosette pattern indicative of conventional (AM) screening? Just wanted some clarification, thanks.

 

[gordo]

Great feedback Gordo! Off Topic but quick query...your mention of the word "moiré" had me thinking. Is this not an objectionable pattern that occurs when a scan is made from a previously printed image without a de-screen applied? Did you mean to say FM screening is used to avoid the rosette pattern indicative of conventional (AM) screening? Just wanted some clarification, thanks.

I thought that the source was paint samples rather than printed samples so that wasn't the moiré I was referring to.
There are two possible moirés with AM screening doing flat screen tint builds - rosettes (which are high frequency moirés) and normal screen angle moiré. Normal screen moiré results from the normal angles of the screens. To minimize screen angle moiré the angles need to be 30° apart. There are only 3 screen angles that meet that criteria. So the 4th ink will always exhibit moiré. Whether you see the moiré or not depends on the hue of that 4th color. It adds complexity if you use an extended process ink set where you're juggling the screen angles of more than 4 colors.
A good FM screen set doesn't have those issues.
A very high frequency (>300 lpi) AM/XM screen can minimize the visibility of rosettes. But they're still there as is the screen angle issue.

 

[dgman]

I appreciate your clarification on the terminology. Just noticed our post discrepancy even though I joined 2 months after you! It's always been so difficult to make time to visit the forum given our deadlines at work.

 

[gordo]

I appreciate your clarification on the terminology. Just noticed our post discrepancy even though I joined 2 months after you! It's always been so difficult to make time to visit the forum given our deadlines at work.

I joined PrintPlanet in 1996 when it first started. It’s gone through a few major transformations since then and the result is that a few of the past decades of the site have disappeared.

 

[Danny Whitehead]

As Gordo suggested, Lab values will probably be better than scans, so I'm pretty sure its a spectrophotometer reading job rather than a scanning job. I'm sure there will be ways to automate some of it, depending on software and hardware you have, and there will be people here with better ideas than myself.

I've done a similar thing for a customer of ours, but that was only for 40 or so colours. I used a spectro, ColorPort software, and this thread:
https://printplanet.com/forum/prepr...colour-swatches-in-illustrator-using-csv-text

The end result was a swatch library file I can use in Adobe software. I'd imagine the creation of image files for each colour in that library would be scriptable, if that's the final product.

 

[gordo]

N.B. The paint company may already have the Lab values for their colors. Ask, since it would nake things much easier.