Conversion from Paint Colours to Printers CMYK colours

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

Hello,

I am working on a book.

The Print Designer wants to have CMYK colour references to match some Vallejo Model Colour Paints.

Vallejo has tables of colour matches but CMYK equivelants are not included.

Does anybody know a way to find the references?

Thanks



Mick

[Daeothar]

Last month, I tried to match the colour of transfer I designed to a vallejo paint I used, by adjusting the RGB values of the printed colour, adding a stroke of the paint on each print attempt to judge how close I was.

It was terrible; I made about 20 tries before settling on the least bad option. Only to discover two things;

1) Printing on transfer paper gives different results than printing on regular paper.
2) (and here is where it gets relevant) When comparing the near-match of my choice under daylight as opposed to under the desk lamps I had been using, the colour turned out to be way off again!

See; because the reflectivity, structure and absorbtion of each medium is different, each reflects light differently as well, resulting in vastly different colours under different lighting conditions.

So, just like it's impossible to match monitor colours uniformly to paint colours (see the LAF Legion thread over in Future Wars; it's stickied), it's also nigh impossible to match printed colours to paints.

To compound the issue, manufacturers can change ingredients or even recipies without warning, so even two pots of paint of the same colour can have differences, ranging from minute to glaring.


Try Encycolorpedia for exhaustive information on Vallejo colours in a whole range of different types (including CMYK).


But you've been warned that such a pursuit will lead to certain madness though...

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

Dear Daeothar

Thank-you very much. I will try Encycolorpedia as you suggest.

Regards

Mick

[AndrewBeasley]

Good luck on this - you are heading for some real fun!  The main thing being as folk use different temperature lights at home then the colours will not be ‘correct’ to the reference anyway.  This is getting worse with LED and colour changing lights...

You may want to buy all the paints and have the printer scan them or Mach for real.

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

I have all the paints that I have used in the recipes. The print designer wants me to provide CMYK references so that they can make coloured boxes as a key to the recipe.

[fred]

It might be worth, painting squares of the colours on white paper / card. And sending this to the designer to scan.

I suppose it depends on if you want accurate colour matches (taking into account all the good info given above), or want something more representative.

Either way having the coloured squares sounds really good, I know when I have read painting guides or recipes, it would have really helped to see the colour that the paint represents. This is especially true with Valejo where there are so many shades, it helps to know if one of the browns, or blues I have is close enough to a shade mentioned.

[Keith]

CMYK > Paint matches are practicaly impossible (just look at Vallejo's own colour charts).
Even with the correct CMYK values there is a lot that can change at the printer's end which can have quite a profound effect particularly in colours with neutral tones which can be pushed towards the red or green end of the spectrum.
Sending paint-chips is probably the best approach, and from those most graphic designers or layout artists should be able to have a good stab at a match.

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

Thank-you everybody.

I will also be sending paint samples. They are already made.