Trying To Make Oranges Brighter

[Speedsterbeast]

I'm having trouble getting my Roland Versacamm to print bright orange. I'm trying to match Oracal 751 Pastel Orange. I pull it from the library, but it is darker than the cast vinyl colour- more than should be expected than any limitation the printer should have. I feel like this wasn't a problem before. Possible printer problem, or can I rectify this with some colour management help?

 

[eahicks]

First off, don't print from Flexi's vinyl color swatches. They are pretty much merely a representation. You're gonna have to find a PMS color that matches the vinyl, and use that, and even then you may have to play around with it. Bright oranges, bright greens (like florescent) are hard to hit, but you can get close.

 

[P Wagner]

The most important point is that any digital printer (particularly those using CMYK inks) always has a defined gamut that represents the achievable colors for the print condition that is being used. The print condition includes the media, media profile, ink restrictions, and other factors that are in play when printing into a specific media.

The color gamut is finite, and if the desired color is significantly outside of it, we will not be able to make that color happen, in spite of our best efforts. The good news is that these gamuts can be modeled, and color matches can be accurately predicted. In the image below, I am showing the Pantone color 165C's position in relation to a media profile for 3M IJ40 on a CMYK digital printer. It is immediately apparent that the Pantone color's position is a ways outside of the gamut hull for the media. This color, Pantone 165C cannot be achieved using this print condition, regardless of how badly we would like to make it happen.

Another print condition, where different ink restrictions are being used, or another printer with other inks (such as Orange ink) might well be able to render this Pantone color, or at least get a lot closer, but not this one.

You can use multiple strikes in an effort to get more ink down onto the media, but run the risk of over saturating the vinyl with ink, which will cause bleed, and makes for much longer drying times.

Paul

 

[gabagoo]

I had to try and get a bright orange for a fleet of vehicles and the best I could do was to do a double hit with a softer orange. The final orange was pretty brilliant...so on top of that I also had to find a way to match a blue as well running a double hit. Due to having to print quite a bit of it for each vehicle it was worth the time to figure out. I also have colour charts for running 720 x 1440... sometimes you can find the colours you need.

 

[particleman]

I'm not sure on the limitations of the Roland, but a lot of Mimaki machines I've used we had the option to print multiple layers of ink on the same pass and include a drying time. On certain jobs we could print 2x or 3x ink passes to achieve a bright coke Red or deep orange using this method. Most of the time it isn't practical, but a trick we use from time to time.

 

[ChaseO]

I'm afraid double striking is the only option to hit a bright orange, but it comes at a cost. Nevermind the double the ink thing, you have to design your file where all the colors are double struck, or send two files to just overprint the one color, which is much more difficult to line up, plus that much ink makes drying a little more finicky and it softens the vinyl to the point that its pretty fragile til it gets laminate on it. Some will use Max Density setting to hit a brighter orange, but I've not had daylight/dark kind of luck from it.

 

[Speedsterbeast]

I'll try those suggestions.
Thanks for the input everyone!

 

[Chasez]

I'm currently running a gradient on optically clear (3m 8150) and having to hit 3 times to achieve the colour. running an epson s50-670 which has a multi layer print which allows me to run the same file through 3 times (up to 5 times) and will print exactly same thing in the exact same spot each time and allows for dry times between each layer etc. This is the only way I have been able to achieve a bright orange.

Chaz