I've created a decal I'd like made for my wifes van. It's to go on the rear tinted windows. About 20" x 15", but an oval shape. It's a black (smidgen of red) stylized logo with a surrounding black oval border.
I'd like the decal cut 1/2 inch outside of the black oval border.
Inside, and 1/2 inch beyond needs to be a certain white value. Either through fills or through printing transparent on a suitable white vinyl. I want the decal to match the white of the body of the van. The van is a 2008 Chevy uplander. Colour is - Summit White - sometimes called Olympic White - paint code, in the paint world is: U8624 or WA8624 or PPG:3800
How can I convert that to an RGB or CYMK ink value?
snipped-for-privacy@neonfeather.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
This is a long reply. If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, just read the last paragraph.
Sounds like you're running off just one or two of these, and that it will be separated from the painted panels by some amount of tinted window. You will be digitally printing this.
I don't know what shade of white your vehicle is, but I suspect you may have a difficult time getting an invisible match. It's unlikely there exists a specific process equivalent to your van's white.
Firstly, your van's paint is what's know as a "spot color", meaning it's one solid shade all the way across. Digital printers can't do spot colors, but must instead do a "process" equivalent made of a combination of dots containing some or all of cyan, magenta, yellow and black, as you appear already aware. Spot-to-process is never a perfect match, and is often "off" by enough to be quite obvious. CMYK-to-RGB or vice versa is even worse.
Secondly, consider your stock. You may be stuck with one or (if you're lucky) two shades of white vinyl, perhaps a cool white (bluish) and a warm white (yellowish). Or you may be limited to whatever single grade the printer has on hand. This will greatly affect the final output, perhaps even making it impossible to get a close match.
Keep in mind also that vinyl is not quite opaque. The windows' tint will be slightly visible through the vinyl, appearing to darken the white vinyl more than you might want. Never attempt to color-match vinyl with the paper backing still on. It's always best to stick the vinyl to its intended substrate and do your color matching from there.
Consumer-grade printers (Staples, Kinko's, for instance) are cheap, but usually expect that you've already done your color homework and do not generally want to be messing with color balance and other settings. I've also found that the color calibration of their machines is not always what it should be.
Commercial-grade digital printers charge a /lot/ more, but have the facilities to help you get as close as possible to the match you want. These places will have Pantone books, and may also have a hand-held Pantone digital color reader, which works similarly to the one Home Depot uses when they try to match the color swatch you brought in. The Pantone device will give you the closest PMS match, plus the CMYK values in your swatch.
How close do you /really/ need to be? Maybe the color of the vinyl itself is already "close enough" and the interposition of the van's windows will mask any mismatch?
My recommendation is this: Once you're done the art, consult a professional sign-making company. There are loads of them out there, and this is the sort of thing they do every day of the week. They'll have Pantone equipment as well, and will probably be able to get satisfactory results a /lot/ more quickly and easily than you ever could on your own.
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