Visually Evaluate Your Print Gamut – and Get Better Color Control

Steve Upton

Your media, ink, and print technology all affect the amount of color you can print. In the session, “Understanding Print Gamut, Graphically,” led by Steve Upton, president of CHROMiX, you’ll learn how to visually evaluate your print gamut and gain a much better understanding of what affects gamut, how to maximize it, and when to stop trying. In many cases, the struggle to get different print technologies to match involves gamut differences. Find out about new gamut comparison methods that clearly show when gamut, and not you, is the problem.

“We hope to introduce printer providers to the idea of graphing color information, such as profile gamuts, measured colors, Pantone colors, and even image colors in 2D and 3D,” says Upton.

“Comparing these graphs is very illuminating and helps people understand the limitations of their device's gamut,” he adds.” When their customers' colors are compared to the printer gamut it's very clear why some colors will never print properly — it can reduce tail-chasing dramatically!”

Simply put, everything inside the gamut is a color you can theoretically print, and everything outside you cannot, explains Upton. Many Pantone colors are left outside typical printer gamuts. ICC printer profiles do a great job of finding in-gamut colors to print instead, but if too many of your customers' brand or image colors are out of gamut, the resulting print can have dull, disappointing colors, muddy shadows and off-color logos. In short, small gamut output loses its punch.

You might also like to know if your system is capable of hitting those Pantone colors, if you will be able to match the color your customer is aiming for.  Knowing your gamut can let you know if you can reproduce the image well using your process colors or if you need to use spot inks.  Knowing the gamuts of every process in your plant tells you how much shared gamut your whole plant is capable of producing.  When it comes to reducing differences between jobs and between different printing technologies, knowing your gamut capabilities is essential.

Come to this session Thursday at 3:00pm in Room C146 and learn which factors increase their print gamut and when to simply show their customers these graphs to explain why some colors may not print properly and how to deal with the limitations.