Creating a House Colorspace

[arossetti]

We have several dye-sub printers that currently are calibrated to G7 grey but have no aim. Dye-sub is a very different gamut to litho and I don't see anyone in the industry currently providing specifications for a dye-sub color space so I thought I would create my own. I'm hoping this will accomplish 3 things. 1.) Describe our color space to our customers who currently expect gracol off of dye sub fabric. 2.) Allow us to use our proofer for adjustments before printing a proof on fabric 3.) Provide a common aim point for all our printers and mitigate gamut mismatches.

My question is how do I create the ICC profile. My thought was to print an IT8 on each printer, find the smallest gamut printer and then make that my source? But shouldn't I still reduce that gamut by 3-5% or so to help it become achievable day in and out? Can I just change the LAB values in the CGATS file for the 100% C,M,Y, & K by a few points? But then my overprints will be messed up right?

Is there software that will allow me to do what I'm trying to do? Am I even going about this the correct way?

 

[Correct Color]

Are you inkjet? And how many different fabrics do you print?


Mike Adams
Correct Color

 

[arossetti]

Yes, our dye sub printing is currently being done on Rolands. Majority of our work goes onto two fabrics then we have some blockout/backlit materials. I planned to tackle the low hanging fruit of our main warp knit fabric first.

 

[Correct Color]

Well...

http://correctcolor.org/colorbycorrectcolorvsg7.html

The problem is that there isn't a dye-sub standard color space because there aren't any dye sub standards for white point or color values or density and there aren't very likely to be any anytime soon.

So the thing to do is profile your printers in your environment, and then print to those profiles. And if you want your clients to see their files as you will print them, you can send any of those profiles to them for soft-proofing. I've got dye sub clients all over the world printing on all manner of materials, from koozies to garments to Chromaluxe, and I can assure you it works. It's what I do for a living; if you want more info, please drop me a line.


Mike Adams
Correct Color