Color Management & Printed Images.

Let's talk color management and printed images, as we want to  make sure that you get the best results on all of your printed items. 

First off, color management is not a precise science.  The colors that you see on your computer monitor cannot be perfectly reproduced by any printer on the market today due to several reasons

• The human eye can perceive colors in a wider gamut (range)  than a printer can produce, and in fact, the same exact image can look different from person to person, so what you see on screen can appear off from the same image after it's been printed.
• An image will look different printed on paper than it will printed on canvas, or fabric, or vellum, or vinyl, etc. so there are several variables that will make it look different than what you see on your screen
• An identical image can vary in how it looks on your monitor compared to any other monitor due to differences in resolution settings, calibrations that may have been performed to adjust color, different manufacturers of the monitors, and so on...
• Similar to the above, the same image will look different if it is printed on an Epson printer, than it would printed on a Canon, HP, Roland, or any other due to the variance in inks.
• Images displayed on-screen will usually appear more saturated and bold than they possibly could if they are reproduced by ink on fabric, or paper, etc.

Sooo, now that you know a bit about the "why's" of printed vs. displayed colors, we need to work on the "how's".  How to prepare our image files to get the closest color match we can to our printed items. Here are some suggetions you can use to get the best results when ordering printed fabric.  Our goal is to have the colors in your fabrics look as similar as possible to your image file.  Please remember that it is not possible for any printer to reproduce colors as vivid and saturated as what you would see on a computer monitor, as explained above. Here are some things that can be done to minimize the color shifting between on-screen and printed images from your uploaded files.  Some of these techniques are for more advanced designers, but don't worry - you will still get great prints without color managing your images, however some colors, such as saturated reds and oranges may not print as vibrantly as expected.  

Upload a high resolution image file.  You can upload your own images in either  JPEG or PNG  format.   We recommend your files be created with a resolution of 150 dpi or higher.  (No cheating here - do not try to create your image at 72 dpi and then convert or resize it to 150dpi - we can tell when you do this and this does not produce the best result).  The minimum dpi that we can accept will be 150dpi.  The designer will not accept images that are not at a minimum of 150dpi.

Color mode: If possible you should try to create your image in the LAB color mode.  LAB, or CIE Lab is a color space that gives the most consistent representation of color regardless of the device used to create it.  This color mode gives the widest gamut of colorswill decrease the  color shifting in your printed images to only colors that are out of our printers gamut.  This results in the closest matching of  colors to your original image file.  In Photoshop go to Image >Mode >Lab Color to work this color space. 

Users can install our color swatch files: We have created a swatch of colors in Photoshop that you can install and use to create your images.  This swatch represents colors that can be reproduced with our printers with no shifting of colors.  Click here to download our custom swatch file.  Save the *.aco file in: Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop X\Presets\Color Swatches  X is the version number for your install of Photoshop. To load: go to the Swatches palette, then click the small arrow in the top right corner and choose printswatch.aco from the swatch collections and click load. 

Advanced users can install our ICC Profile: An ICC Profile is a file that describes how a device (i.e. a printer, monitor, scanner, etc.) reproduces color.  We can provide you with an ICC Profile of our printer.  With an accurately calibrated monitor, this profile can be used to generate a 'soft proof' of your image in Photoshop versions 6.0 and later, which will show you what your printed image will look like.    Click here to download the ICC Profile.  After downloading, right-click on the file and select install profile.  Then in Photoshop, open your image, go to View>Proof Setup>Custom and you can select the Eye Candey ICC Profile.  This will show you what your image file will look like printed on our printers.  Your original image won't be changed in any way.

Order a swatch - when color matching is a high-priority we recommend ordering a swatch of your fabric design prior to placing an order for yardage