Testing the color/tone/shade you print with?

[OhNoPrinting]

Testing the color/tone/shade you print with?

Yeah, was wondering what everybody is doing when it comes to choosing color. I tried to recreate the Pantone numbers in Photoshop and it looked great, but when I actually printed, it was much to light (for my taste: top left)
I then started to change and mix the ink in/on the screen (i know, not what you are supposed to do), came slowly with every new version closer to what I wanted - til i overdid it with the red 

So, is there a way to get a better idea how the inks/print will look in real life? Like a different color profile in Photoshop maybe? or is it mainly experience?

[blue moon]

Lot of it will come down to experience.
When you separate the colors will be pretty close to what you have on the screen. If you stray too far you’ll get the problems you are seeing now with too much difference/contrast between the highlight and the red. If you wanted to keep that red, the highlight would have to have something in it too rather than just plain white. There is a harsh line in that transition right now and too much contrast between the light and dark, it does not look natural.

Pj

[blue moon]

P.S. Also, human skin is very unforgiving. Your fish or dog can be slightly redder or yellower and we (humans) will not care. But our skin color is made of yellow, red, blue and green. You’ll have to balance those really well for good results.

[Dottonedan]

Avoid using the eye dropper and letting photoshop pick any colors.  Those can be way way off.

Do this instead.

[Atownsend]

Anyone using the fancy tools from x-rite? Curious to know what they actually cost. I reached out a while back, but didn’t get a reply from a rep. Looks like you can get a Spectrophotometer and densitometer all in one. That would be truly next level.

[Sbrem]

Avoid using the eye dropper and letting photoshop pick any colors.  Those can be way way off.

Do this instead.

Wouldn't this require a calibrated monitor and ambient color color control? I agree that PS is very often off, but looking at the same image here between my iMac and the art dept. iMac can be fairly different.

Steve

[Dottonedan]

Avoid using the eye dropper and letting photoshop pick any colors.  Those can be way way off.

Do this instead.

Wouldn't this require a calibrated monitor and ambient color color control? I agree that PS is very often off, but looking at the same image here between my iMac and the art dept. iMac can be fairly different.

Steve

No.  I used to get way too deep into calibrating monitors and color prints. Over time, someone (I think it was the art director at S&S in Florida) suggested to adjust the color needed to look like the color needed (if you so desire).  This is production. We are dropping in a designated color that we use out in production (into a channel). It's an isolated area and easy to adjsut the look of the color rather than try to bend over backwards adjusting monitors, profiles and output settings. Think of it as numbers. color numbers are more accurate than using visual references. But looking at the actual pantone (that production will also be matching to), is key.


Photoshops color picker is completely based on your monitor..and even changes on the fly depending on where that art is moved to while viewing in Photoshop.  Meaning, color picker can pick one way in PS on your screen...and picks another color in my Photoshop. Color picker is designed in a way that makes it dependent on your color profiles. Not exactly to Pantones colors for example. Sounds like a flaw there to me, but thats the case based on what I read. I didn't know to this degree until just last week while looking for some other info. and I've seen color picker be very far off. Deep blues and purples especially.



The thing is, if a color you know you want to use, does not look like the color when you pick it in the pantone swatch when you are choose using color picker, (you manually adjust the pantone to be more like the pantone. From this point, it is just a visual reference while your working on it.  Like for example, we often change a white to a hot pink while working on and outputting seps yet we know they will be putting in a white ink because it's titled as WHITE.  We can also adjust our pantone colors to be more visually accurate (based on lighting in your room while your working on it and comparing to an actual pantone book.


It's works 100% for me and how I have done it for maybe 15 years now.  Nothing better.


One more note.  I think it's a matter of adjusting your production art to visually look like what you are comparing to on your screen. Since most of the world doesn't know how to save color preferences and profiles and embedded those profiles into their file for export for sending outside to printers, you may open a customer file and see it one way, but they had seen it another way. You need to work on it (on your computer) based on what you are looking at. So unless they are also professionals and aware of color profiles and exporting with those profiles embedded, then most of our work is "close enough".
My suggestion here, is not intended to assume that what you are looking at is an accurate color starting point or reference.  Make sense?

[blue moon]

Anyone using the fancy tools from x-rite? Curious to know what they actually cost. I reached out a while back, but didn’t get a reply from a rep. Looks like you can get a Spectrophotometer and densitometer all in one. That would be truly next level.

I dont think those are worth it.