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Considering buying a spectrophotometer to make matching colors easier, suggestions? Recommendations?
- Thread starter worldofmim
- Start date
Smoke_Jaguar
Man who touches printers inappropriately.
First thing to do is see what devices are compatible with your workflow, RIP and other software and go from there.
appropriate1
New Member
I am not sure if it qualifies as a spectrophotometer, but I bought a Nix Color Sensor a few years back. Mine was about $200 and I see them now from $59 to $800 for various models on Ebay. It is portable on internal battery power, charged by a usb plug. It scans a smooth color surfaces or fabrics and can give you a HEX number, CMYK or a variety of paint brands closest paint match. For example, I can match it to one of several lines of particular Sherwin Williams house paints color easily. The down-side on paint matches is that you are often scanning a faded color in the field on an older sign, so match is not perfect. Wetting the surface first helped. It does not give me a Pantone color match, which would be most valuable to my uses, but I think I can by into a PMS subscription to make that available to me. It will wirelessly connect with my iPhone and everything is saved. I find I use it a few times a year and probably not worth it for me to own one, but it is a pretty decent gadget that comes close to colors. My unit is older technology, so my guess is the newer ones are much better. www.Nixsensor.com is where I bought mine.
somcalmetim
New Member
Are you wanting to match colors to mix paint or print?
The NIX thing I bought is ok and lets you match to different paint libraries or spits out a CMYK or RGB value...I dont know how well it matches their included paint systems but you are not going to sample something and just print that color, still requires a couple rounds of tests...sampling an imported phone picture of the paint is almost as good but takes an extra minute...
You can sample anything you place it on and it will get you a starting point but it still requires 2 or 3 rounds of samples to hone it down to something that "matches" on the material you are using...
This might work better for the paint libraries that it includes but I can usually match colors by eye almost as fast for printing...
We are usually trying to print vinyl to match automotive paint with some level of metallic which it does not sample that well.
We used to have a profile calculator that would take Pantone CMYK values and adjust them for closer printed output, not sure if there is something for this, might help but would have to be profiled for each printer/material combo.
The NIX thing I bought is ok and lets you match to different paint libraries or spits out a CMYK or RGB value...I dont know how well it matches their included paint systems but you are not going to sample something and just print that color, still requires a couple rounds of tests...sampling an imported phone picture of the paint is almost as good but takes an extra minute...
You can sample anything you place it on and it will get you a starting point but it still requires 2 or 3 rounds of samples to hone it down to something that "matches" on the material you are using...
This might work better for the paint libraries that it includes but I can usually match colors by eye almost as fast for printing...
We are usually trying to print vinyl to match automotive paint with some level of metallic which it does not sample that well.
We used to have a profile calculator that would take Pantone CMYK values and adjust them for closer printed output, not sure if there is something for this, might help but would have to be profiled for each printer/material combo.
tulsagraphics
New Member
The OP has an HP Latex 315.
As Smoke_Jaguar mentioned, check the device compatibility list for your RIP software.
HEX or RGB values are basically useless IMO. RGB values are for monitors / screens (digital mediums). Wide format printing uses the CMYK color space.
Inexpensive standalone spectros won't get you very far. If you're serious about color matching, you'll want a spectro that interfaces with your RIP software because you need to calibrate your media profiles using that spectro (typically an "ICC Profile Wizard" built into your RIP software). Note: Stock profiles from vinyl manufacturers are usually pretty terrible.
Important: There's no point in color matching if you're not creating custom ICC profiles for each of your films (ICC profiles tell your printer how to interpret / process the data acquired from your spectro). In a nutshell, your RIP software will print out test targets / swatches, and you use the spectro to scan them back into the RIP software. The RIP compares the difference of what it tried to print with what your spectro actually scanned -- then makes adjustments that get your profile more calibrated.. rinse and repeat 1 or 2x depending on your RIP's requirements (it's a semi-automated process, and TBH, a bit of a pain, but necessary) which helps you achieve better color matching across all your materials. You should update profiles for each of your films every 1 to 2 years.
And yes, spectros can be very expensive, but you don't need anything "too" fancy. I wouldn't look at anything less than 1.5-2k. X-Rite is very popular (and certainly one of the more affordable RIP supported spectros on the market). Used ones can be found online, but do your research to make sure you're buying a current model. This is the case for any brand since hardware does get deprecated over time. For example, I've been using this one for years (got it lightly used for about $2.5k), but it was deprecated as of Jan. 2025: https://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx/ph_product_overview.aspx?ID=1947&action=support
While it still seems to work, it's just a matter of time before this thing is basically a paper weight (RIP developer will eventually remove the drivers built into their software).
Hope that helps!
As Smoke_Jaguar mentioned, check the device compatibility list for your RIP software.
HEX or RGB values are basically useless IMO. RGB values are for monitors / screens (digital mediums). Wide format printing uses the CMYK color space.
Inexpensive standalone spectros won't get you very far. If you're serious about color matching, you'll want a spectro that interfaces with your RIP software because you need to calibrate your media profiles using that spectro (typically an "ICC Profile Wizard" built into your RIP software). Note: Stock profiles from vinyl manufacturers are usually pretty terrible.
Important: There's no point in color matching if you're not creating custom ICC profiles for each of your films (ICC profiles tell your printer how to interpret / process the data acquired from your spectro). In a nutshell, your RIP software will print out test targets / swatches, and you use the spectro to scan them back into the RIP software. The RIP compares the difference of what it tried to print with what your spectro actually scanned -- then makes adjustments that get your profile more calibrated.. rinse and repeat 1 or 2x depending on your RIP's requirements (it's a semi-automated process, and TBH, a bit of a pain, but necessary) which helps you achieve better color matching across all your materials. You should update profiles for each of your films every 1 to 2 years.
And yes, spectros can be very expensive, but you don't need anything "too" fancy. I wouldn't look at anything less than 1.5-2k. X-Rite is very popular (and certainly one of the more affordable RIP supported spectros on the market). Used ones can be found online, but do your research to make sure you're buying a current model. This is the case for any brand since hardware does get deprecated over time. For example, I've been using this one for years (got it lightly used for about $2.5k), but it was deprecated as of Jan. 2025: https://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx/ph_product_overview.aspx?ID=1947&action=support
While it still seems to work, it's just a matter of time before this thing is basically a paper weight (RIP developer will eventually remove the drivers built into their software).
Hope that helps!
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We have the nix mini for when we are on the road and Spectro 2 in the shop. If you scan the same sample, the values they give are very similar but the Spectro 2 is more precise on different surface finishes. Our profile engineer was impressed how close it was to his professional setup. We use nix to attain LaB values which we input directly into onyx. With our custom profiles the colour comes out pretty much bang on every time. We have also corrected the values in the color matching table (Pantone, RAL, etc) but that’s an ongoing process.
The drawback with nix is that you have to pay an annual subscription for color libraries eg. Pantone. So unless you are going to use lab values or pay extra, then it’s pretty much useless for print work and won’t save you any time. You’d be better off to just print a bunch of swatches and comparing them visually to your sample. We also have a Pantone branded scanner made by X-rite which is great if you want to find a close Pantone color as a starting point. But finding a Pantone color then printing that Pantone is a job in itself.
The drawback with nix is that you have to pay an annual subscription for color libraries eg. Pantone. So unless you are going to use lab values or pay extra, then it’s pretty much useless for print work and won’t save you any time. You’d be better off to just print a bunch of swatches and comparing them visually to your sample. We also have a Pantone branded scanner made by X-rite which is great if you want to find a close Pantone color as a starting point. But finding a Pantone color then printing that Pantone is a job in itself.
If you own one of the Xrite i1-series spectros(or others listed as supported) and have an android smartphone with a USB OTG adapter, you can purchase the Argyll Pro Colorimeter app (www.argyllpro.com) and do color measurement, ambient light color temperature and CRI, among other things. You can also store your measurements in CGATS or CSV(suitable for a spreadsheet).