when calling out a pms, how far do you go to match PMS col?

[inkman996]

I guess there is a reason why we are running a print business and you are an artist Dan.

Sorry to tell you but half of what you said would never fly with us or our customers, 90% of the time the customer bows to our experience and expertise on how the final product will come out.

If they are simply Joe Blow and want an ugly dull color on black we will advise them to change it because it is also our walking bill board on there back, sure we can always give them just what they want alas that is not how we roll.

I know quite a few artists not all t shirt guys that have zero concept of the back ground color and the effect it has on the art work so my statement about that is not off base at all trust me.

[Dottonedan]

I guess there is a reason why we are running a print business and you are an artist Dan.

Sorry to tell you but half of what you said would never fly with us or our customers, 90% of the time the customer bows to our experience and expertise on how the final product will come out.

If they are simply Joe Blow and want an ugly dull color on black we will advise them to change it because it is also our walking bill board on there back, sure we can always give them just what they want alas that is not how we roll.

I know quite a few artists not all t shirt guys that have zero concept of the back ground color and the effect it has on the art work so my statement about that is not off base at all trust me.

I guess there is a reason why we are running a print business and you are an artist Dan.

  No.  Not much of a reason.

Sorry to tell you but half of what you said would never fly with us or our customers, 90% of the time the customer bows to our experience and expertise on how the final product will come out.

Oh.  You must be VERY good then. In fact, better than all of the rest of the printers out their. I don't know anyone who has customers bowing to them. LOL. Do they bow on price as well?

Maybe so. I'm sure you are a good shop. You wouldn't be where you are today if you weren't. Perhaps tho, you might be even further with some adjustments in some areas. Like many have said here, it depends on your customer. You, may have 90% of your customers that are "Joe blow" as you say.  I don't knock that at all. We need Joe Blow's. They make up a tone of business.

Joe blow will listen to your expertise, a Coke will not. A school that wants it's GREEN on a black tee does not need a brighter green because you don't like that color. They want their color, not yours. An ad agency that has put together a campaign that has some art with a very dark brown on a black shirt will not want you changing it to a brighter red just because you are the expert at printing tees. They want what they want for a reason. You're skills and expertise in deciding that my color I used is not pretty ....does not matter to my add campaign. When you "tell me" that my color is crap and you don't want to print it because the tees are your walking billboard, you can tell that you your employer as I walk out the door to another printer.  Now, you may never have that with the type of customers you have. I don't know. From the sounds of it, they are all Joe Blow that bow to you and thats ok.  If I were rude, I might now say, "I guess there is a reason why you have customers that do not have expectations outside of yours", but I'm not like that.  Thats just a for instance.

As a side note, I am just a dumb artist that sells tees as well. I job the printing out to printers who are capable of matching PMS colors and adhere to my request since I call them out for a reason.

It's also like that with separations. Any separator or sep service will call out PMS colors to match for sim process. If a shop does not use the colors we call out or does not match colors at all and uses a random blue or a random red when I call out 186, then the results are less than I designed the seps to be.

[Screened Gear]

we offer all of the above at different cost.
-close is standard and it usually does not incur a charge if we have anything on the shelf that is close or it takes less than few min to get it close. this is what most customers want as they do not wish to pay for the matching and their customers are not that demanding.
-next one is very close, which in Dan's terms is a shade up or down. This is a $15 charge and the color printed is the color from the formula book. As we all know, those are not spot on, but are pretty close. They will print differently on the dark fabric with an underbase (generally much, much lighter) then they will on a white shirt without the underbase. This is our normal Pantone match.
-super demanding customers are charged $25 and the ink is mixed until the perceptual value matches the specified pantone color. That means we adjust the ink several times unit the perceptual difference is negligible. If going on a navy shirt the color will not be the same as if going on the red. Our eye perceives the colors differently based on the surrounding colors and we compensate for this. Most customers do not wish to pay for this, but the ones that want it are glad that we offer it!

pierre

I do the same as Pierre but charge $25 per mix. I Don't have picky color clients but when I do they pay more. One thing to watch out for is color of the ink after printed. I just mixed a pink up this week and it looked very close after mixing and was fine for this customer. Then after I printed the color on a white tank top the color was dead on after coming out of the dryer (cooled down). I am not sure the formula is for after printed or not. This is the first time I have seen this happen.

[Ron Pierson]

Yes - we PMS match with good results. I have most colors on the shelf already. I still charge for it - minimal fee. Sure, an occasional complaint. We get our fan, isolate the ink from the shirt field (process below) and it becoms convincing.

Another good thing you will need is good lighting when producing PMS matching. We changed all the florescent lighting and fixtures in our shop (to the tune of about $5000.00) with dramatic results. It took down the power bill a little as well. Energy effecient, I'm told. The light here is now perfect.

We use a hole punch on our PMS fan right in the center of the color and place the printed sample under the hole of the PMS we are trying to match for better accuracy. It works kinda like when you adjust your monitor for color accuracy. You know - The color in the circle has to match the square around it.

I have another trick - close one eye. it takes out the stereoscopic (sic) effect of vision and makes the garment ink and PMS fan look "flat" for even better accuracy.

[squeegee]

We don't charge for PMS colors generally (plastisol) but we have 500+ colors in stock, so most of the time we already have the color.  As to exact matches we say "simulation" of Pantone and for those picky customers we arrange a press check.  That said plans are in the works to offer a extensive pallet of PMS + custom mixes and stockers for next year, mixes outside of that will be charged at a to be determined rate.

[Lizard]

[quote
It's also like that with separations. Any separator or sep service will call out PMS colors to match for sim process. If a shop does not use the colors we call out or does not match colors at all and uses a random blue or a random red when I call out 186, then the results are less than I designed the seps to be.
[/quote]

This is true, well... somewhat, maybe.  I printed a job on navy shirts today that was pre sepped.  The art was sent to me with all channels at 100%.  Some colors had no underbase or a % of underbase with a navy background.  I asked the customer (who did not do the art) if he wanted the print to look like the proof or if he wanted me to use the colors specified?  Big difference.

[Fresh Baked Printing]

We don't charge for PMS colors generally (plastisol) but we have 500+ colors in stock, so most of the time we already have the color.  As to exact matches we say "simulation" of Pantone and for those picky customers we arrange a press check.  That said plans are in the works to offer a extensive pallet of PMS + custom mixes and stockers for next year, mixes outside of that will be charged at a to be determined rate.

Are the containers noted with a PMS number or do you match the ink to the card visually?

[spotcolorsupply]

We use a hole punch on our PMS fan right in the center of the color and place the printed sample under the hole of the PMS we are trying to match for better accuracy. It works kinda like when you adjust your monitor for color accuracy. You know - The color in the circle has to match the square around it.

That is a great idea!! Gotta get me a hole punch

[spotcolorsupply]

So from a supplier’s standpoint... What do you guys expect 

We currently draw down PMS matches through a 155 mesh static frame with 1/8" off contact on to a white T-Shirt material, 2 strokes manually, 70/90/70 duro squeegee under daylight fluorescent bulbs, and we do cure (or at least flash cure the print).

When we have a wet sample this is a non issue, but when matching a pantone book, what would you guys consider a good standard??

Keep in mind transparent colors can shift a few shades depending on mesh count (you already knew that tho  ). 

Should we ask for all of the printing parameters for every PMS order (Squeegee, Mesh, Thread Diameter, etc)? I’ve done this plenty of times for UV sign printing customers. Thread diameter matters....

Or do you guys expect to have to tweak the color depending on the job?

Any input would be appreciated!!

[Northland]

Hand grenades, atom bombs & PMS match... close is usually good enough.

[Chadwick]

This whole conversation got derailed right off the start, but,
PMS matches...yeah, we do that. Pretty damn good.
Problem is, they, the customer, pick new fabric colors late in the game, which f*cks everything up royaly.
For example, turquoise looks like ass on a dark green.
Ya know?

I do the art thing. I know the scoop. I also print.

They ( the customer ) can be so particular about color, since they feel they've designed it, if they give it a number.
Which never works later.
It's like excited newly-weds telling an architect 'exactly' how to build a house, lol.

Build with primaries, always. Primaries are shades of contrast, except, with color.
Give it a number if you need too, at a later date.

But yeah, they'll never get it.


No one here charges near enough. We need a 'PITA' fee.
And that's about that.

 

[Screened Gear]

Even in paper printing there is no dead on. Offset printer are off more on paper then most of us do on shirts. I have lost thousands in paper printing because a pantone was off by 5%. Coke pays thousand to have their Coke Red on everything. They do get close but with all the different variables it is not possible to be dead on always. This is how I look at it. If you hold two (Different) items in Pantone 194 a foot apart they should look the same. If you lay them so they butt up they will look different almost 100 percent of the time.

In screen printing like many other businesses if your client is looking for something to be wrong they will find something. Even if it is not there. (hint: fire that client)

[tonypep]

Color snobs like Nike insist on not calling out PMS colors. Instead each season you would recieve a kit within which would be a bag of assorted shoelace tips, sneaker rubber, etc. Those were your color standards. You would then proceed to match each sample using two formulas. One on white fabric and one underbased on dark fabric. Typically these used different base and pigment ratios. And no you didn't charge for this, as difficult as it was.
Other snobs like Hillfiger claim to have standards but they vary between the different apparel divisions. It would not be uncommon to have six or more Tommy reds, blues, and so on. Very difficult to control and keep from cross contamination.
Sorry for the slightly off topic.

[Sbrem]

Even in paper printing there is no dead on. Offset printer are off more on paper then most of us do on shirts. I have lost thousands in paper printing because a pantone was off by 5%. Coke pays thousand to have their Coke Red on everything. They do get close but with all the different variables it is not possible to be dead on always. This is how I look at it. If you hold two (Different) items in Pantone 194 a foot apart they should look the same. If you lay them so they butt up they will look different almost 100 percent of the time.

In screen printing like many other businesses if your client is looking for something to be wrong they will find something. Even if it is not there. (hint: fire that client)

I printed for Coke years ago, and they were a pain. They would give us CMYK percentages for the red, never a PMS color. We explained very hard that it doesn't work that way, and we custom mixed by eye a red for them that they signed off on. The cans are a different color than the boxes they come in for crying out loud. We won't touch them now, they just suck. Let them beat someone else up.

Steve

[mk162]

I turned Coke down a couple years back.  Didn't need the headaches.