Want more accurate colors? Swatch charts involve printing one-or-more sheets of material (i.e., garments), and each swatch has a color value. Lab charts are printed with Lab values, CMYK charts are printed with CMYK values, etc.
By printing your own charts, values are accurate for your specific printer, including its inks, substrate, and operating environment. When a customer picks colors from your charts, this ensures your printer can reproduce those colors.
For applications without Lab color support, print either CMYK or RGB charts. For a held job, Job Color Replacement substitutes CMYK colors before printing.
There are several methods of printing swatch charts.
For multipage PDF swatch charts:
- Turn on the “Tools” menu.
- Select “Options”
- Enable “Always split multiple page PDF files into separate files”.
Preset swatch charts use:
- “Devices” menu
- Print Test Page
There are three sets of swatches for CMYK, RGB, and Lab color values. These swatch charts reflect the ICC Profile tab (and rendering intents), so print new charts if these settings change.
Suppose the job file contains a spot color that can be simulated using CMYK inks. Using your charts, lookup the closest color match.
Cursor over the job for the spot color spelling.
- Choose Devices menu
- Manage Spot Colors
- Type the spot color name and CMYK values.
Device swatches are more accurate than preset RGB / CMYK swatches. Custom swatches can also combine spot colors with CMYK.
- Select “Devices” menu
- Manage Device Spots
- click Create Swatch to set the arrangement of spots and/or CMYK.
These charts are consistent regardless of the ICC Profile tab settings, including the rendering intents. However, these charts are specific to the printer and its loaded inks/substrate, so changes require printing new charts.
When Digital Factory is installed, Lab color palettes are provided for SignLab, CorelDraw and Illustrator.
In SignLab:
- Choose “Options”
- Palette
- Find Color
- Look in Printer Palettes Library.
Search in CADlink Default > Lab Swatch, then add to the Shop Palette.
In CorelDraw:
- Choose Window
- Color Palettes
- Open Palette
- Color
- Palettes
- Spot
- Lab Swatch
- Then choose Show Color Names to reveal the Lab values.
In Illustrator:
- choose Windows
- Swatch Libraries
- Other Library
- Swatches
- CADlink
- Open Lab Palette.ai
The CorelDraw and Illustrator Lab palettes are also in the Digital Factory > Palettes directory.
With your swatch charts as a guide, applying Lab colors from these palettes ensures consistent color reproduction.