What’s going on, Print Fam?
Today we are talking about color mixing systems and color matching specific colors for your clients. What to do, what not to do, and how to dial in your ink room so you stop wasting time and money. Let's rock and roll.
Rule #1: Never Guess a Custom Color If your customer reaches out and says, "Yeah, you know this graphic... it's got kind of like a dark reddish-orange color," my immediate internal response is: Nope.
There is absolutely no way I am going to try and figure out what color is in your head. If a customer cannot provide a specific Pantone code, they do not get a custom-mixed color. They get a standard, off-the-shelf color from my basic color card.
Running your shop this way prevents any BS from coming up later with a client saying, "That's not the color I had in mind."
As a printer, you need to have a physical Pantone book in your shop at all times.
Use the Coated book if you do Plastisol printing. Use the Uncoated book if you do Water-based or Discharge printing. If they can't give you a code from that book, you aren't mixing it.
The Ink Mixing System Once you know your Pantone (for today's example, we are mixing Pantone 1375 C), you need to pick an ink mixing system.
We use the PC Concentrate System from Wilflex. It's awesome because the ink colors are concentrates, meaning you don't have to stock gallons and gallons of finished colors. A single gallon of mixing base combined with these concentrates will last a very long time. Union, Rutland, and other manufacturers have similar systems.
Pro-Tip on Cost Efficiency: When we got started, we didn't buy the entire expensive system all at once. We bought the base, and then we only bought the specific pigments as they were needed for actual client jobs. This is the most cost-efficient way to build your ink room.
The Software & The Formula You are going to need the mixing software for whatever system you chose. We use Wilflex's IMS 3.0.
You type your Pantone code (1375 C) into the software, and it spits out the exact gram weights of the pigments you need to mix into your base. It even allows you to print a label that you can slap right onto your quart container so you know exactly what is in it for future reorders.
For our 1375 C mix, the formula is:
Mixing Base: 134 grams Bright Yellow: 23.98 grams Extra White: 6.47 grams Bright Orange: 1.00 gram The Mixing Technique: Ditch the Quart Container A lot of printers will grab an empty quart container, dump their base in, squeeze their pigments on top, and just stir it all up right inside the bucket. We used to do that, but it is incredibly frustrating and imprecise.
Here is my solution for getting hyper-exact measurements:
Get a Heavy-Duty Gram Scale: You need a gram scale that allows for heavier items so it doesn't max out. Use a Flat Mixing Surface: I tried a slab of granite, but it was too heavy for my scale. So, I switched to using heavy-duty glass cutting boards. (Warning: Be careful, if you drop them, they shatter everywhere. Stainless steel medical trays also work, but glass is the best because it is perfectly rigid and smooth). Tare the Scale: Place the glass on the scale and hit "Tare" to zero it out. Isolate the Pigments: Instead of dumping everything into a bucket, smear your base right in the middle of the glass. Then, use the corners of the glass to weigh out your exact pigment increments. By keeping the pigments isolated in the corners before you blend them, you can be incredibly exact with your gram weights. Once everything is perfectly weighed out on the glass, take your spatula and mix it all together right there on the slab.
Scrape it up, drop it into your labeled quart container, and you have a perfect, undeniable Pantone match.
Get your mixing station dialed in, and let's get to printing!