Color charts

Contact the paint manufacturers directly and ask—many are happy to help. If not, getting them professionally printed is your best option.

As a printer, bear in mind that the majority of pdfs downloaded from the web are not of a high enough resolution to warrent the expense of a professional printing. If your SOHO colour inkjet printer isn't giving you the results you think it should, try one of the office supply companies that offer colour printing. Office Depot and Staples offer reasonably priced colour copies, so does the UPS Store. Before you do, though, try adjusting the output resolution of your own printer first!

Thank you, I will give those suggestions a try.  I searched online a bit and was unable to find a contact for the Gunze Sangyo paint manufacturer.  Any idea who makes them or how to get in touch with them?

Testors and Humbrol both produce charts of their products and usually can be found in the LHS that sell them.  One thing you need to remember that they may not be too accurate.  When printing the charts, inks are used which usually lead to a caveat being printed somewhere on the chart - "Due to the limitations of printing inks, some colors on this chart may not be an accurate representation of the actual color of the paint" or words to that effect.

qmiester wrote:

Testors and Humbrol both produce charts of their products and usually can be found in the LHS that sell them.  One thing you need to remember that they may not be too accurate.  When printing the charts, inks are used which usually lead to a caveat being printed somewhere on the chart - "Due to the limitations of printing inks, some colors on this chart may not be an accurate representation of the actual color of the paint" or words to that effect.

Quoted for truth! The only 100% accurate way to represent paint is to use paint, which is a very expensive process. Only four colors are used in color printing: cyan, magenta, process yellow and process black. A slight deviation in color, pressure, registration, inking, fountain solution and blanket packing can throw off the color.

Dragon USA imports Gunze to the US http://www.dragonmodelsusa.com. As they are a wholesale distributor, they may refer you to a dealer.

I've forgotten—samp problem with laser printers, too?

Yup, same problem with laser printers. The amount of toner in the cartidges controls the color density, less toner may result in less density and therefore a color shift.

I forgot to mention that if you are using an inkjet and have photo mode or an ink cartridge especially made for photo reproduction, use that. The resolution will be much better and you will likely see the color differences you want.

They may not be accurate, but you'll see them!

You could try this site but no colour charts but good cross ref if this helps. http://www.creativemodels.net/humbrol_conversion.htm

Bgrigg wrote:

qmiester wrote: Testors and Humbrol both produce charts of their products and usually can be found in the LHS that sell them.  One thing you need to remember that they may not be too accurate.  When printing the charts, inks are used which usually lead to a caveat being printed somewhere on the chart - "Due to the limitations of printing inks, some colors on this chart may not be an accurate representation of the actual color of the paint" or words to that effect. Quoted for truth! The only 100% accurate way to represent paint is to use paint, which is a very expensive process. Only four colors are used in color printing: cyan, magenta, process yellow and process black. A slight deviation in color, pressure, registration, inking, fountain solution and blanket packing can throw off the color. Dragon USA imports Gunze to the US http://www.dragonmodelsusa.com. As they are a wholesale distributor, they may refer you to a dealer.

Some other factors would include poor color seperation, dot gain, worn/bad set rollers, linting, fluctuations in ph and conductivity of water all would affect the color.  4 color printing = 3 process colors: cyan magenta yellow + Black 

Living Legend, you a closet pressman?

I wasn't going to get that technical but you're absolutely correct. With all the variables that affect colour printing, it's amazing anything gets printed at all!

I'm actually working on a job that is a color chart for a fiberglass company. They use the European RAL system of color matching rather than Pantone, which means we have to convert the RAL to CMYK first. I've already informed the customer that the color won't be an exact match, and to put a disclaimer in that the colors used are only representative of the color of the finished piece. After all we're printing on paper, not on fiberglass!