Color management with lamination

[JoshB]

We're looking at expanding lamination options, and I'm concerned about color matching. Does anyone have good advice for dealing with this? Specifically I'm concerned that:

#1 -- The gamut may be different between gloss and matte. We limit the gamut to Gracol Coated v2, but I'm not sure that will be fully reachable from our Docucolor 5000s through a matte or crystal finish.

#2 -- I'm concerned about profiling through the different lamination options. Some of the laminates include anti-UV treatments. Is this going to throw off the X-rite i1 when we try to profile? It seems like the camera's perceivable color range may be different from the human eye, and that whatever software correction they use will be thrown off by suddenly cutting out UV light.

Any hints or tips? What does everyone else do out there? Do you profile for each paper and laminate? Do you just create one profile and use it with each laminate, saying "Good enough"?

 

[sealleung]

I suggest you use a cut-back curve to compensate the lamination.It donse't work when using the i1 to make a profile for glossy lamination.

 

[JoshB]

So make the profile on the paper alone and then eye-ball a compensation curve for the laminate? I guess that could work, though it leaves things fuzzier than I like.

 

[rich apollo]

I think you're gonna' want to profile both with and without the laminate(s). You'll need to profile without to be able to judge color during the print run. You'll need to profile with to approximate the end result.

The gloss laminate may actually increase your gamut. Gloss coatings make the dark tones appear darker and make saturated colors appear more saturated. I wonder how it will affect the whites, and it's a very good question about the affect of the laminates with UV protection. That's something you'll just have to measure, and perhaps edit for.

The matte laminate will almost assuredly compress the gamut a bit.

 

[circa_bc]

I couldnt see the Xrite being thrown off by the laminate. Personally I just profile on my substrates and manually adjust my curves for the Laminate as i see fit. Alot of colors dont change with the lam, but there are some that change drastically.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Like this is where we link the latest RE: Print about art and science? The artist may get the result faster and doesn't need to know why it works, the scientist... when he eventually gets there (hopefully before the question is obsolete) will be sure that if it is not as he expected, then it's someone else's fault

What is common to both is a process of experimentation, big the difference is if the results are documented in number or just stored in the users intuition.

 

[FlexoGrunt]

I can tell you we map every combination that we run 4cp on. If it's a semi-gloss with a matte lamination? We map it. KK with UV varnish? We map it.

Getting there seems to be a pain (press time, plating, etc..) but I can tell you once it's done the worries of color reproduction are greatly reduced.


(Note: Flexo has the advantage of doing it all in-line whereas you may not have that benefit).

 

[Glenn McDowall]

Are there any "ball park" profiles out there, Rich Apollo described the colour shift pretty much spot on for a packaging job I'm looking at, the finished white is also about 8% yellower than my fogra39 proofing paper, some yellowing is down to board and some extra down to laminate.
I don't have any software to create my own profile so am hoping for a "generic" profile for Laminate in the same way that Fogra 39 covers most coated litho stocks, I can then convert upfront in photoshop.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

The Fogra49 and Fogra50 specifications cover gloss and matte laminated printing of Fogra39, which may be helpful.

Downloads [ECI.ORG]
http://www.eci.org/_media/downloads/eci_offset_profiles_surface_finished.zip


Stephen Marsh

 

[Glenn McDowall]

Thanks Stephen will try these out next week