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Hi All,

I need some guidance on what the best standards someone would use when printing on polyethylene and polystyrene plastics, and pressure sensitive vinyl on digital UV printers.

For years I have used GRACoL 2013  as my go to, mostly because this is what my predecessor used and because it seemed to work.   Now as I am diving deeper into understanding color management and we have diversified our printing presses, I'm trying to get everything to a standard and achieve G7.   While I understand that the  GRACoL and SWOP standards are more for offset lithographic printing for coated and uncoated medias , I'm now wondering if this is the best standard to use since our media isn't coated nor does it act or give the results of an uncoated media. Is there something that might be better suited for what we are printing on?

Thanks

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Tom Bean
Digital Support Technician
Versa-Tags Inc
Cuba, MO
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Thomas

Swop and Gracol are well known characterization data set- developed for publication and "commercial  offset printing. The datasets and profiles are published at color.org. 

lthey also have other names and uses- cgsts21 and iso 15339 both currently contain 7 datasets for digital data. Swop 2013 is CRPC5 (used in a lot of packaging with less than ideal coatings- Gracol2013 is CRP6 used as an aim for 80% of the worlds packaging. The series of CRPC's are for and printing process. CRPC1 is a very small gamut- CROC7 is very large - the all have common appearance. 

when I evaluate a printing system I compare a devices gamut to the Standard 1-7 CPPC's. You will fil one that is closest, then edit white point as needed. Almost all Flexo prints to crpc6. There are more datasets in the oven currently.

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Steve Smiley
Owner
Smileycolor
469-309-2025
Steve@...
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Craig and Steve,

Thanks for your inputs on this.  It defiantly makes sense and helps immensely.  I've been using CRPC 6 as a reference set up until now, because it has worked for everything, but we made a change to our workflow  for a particular product by eliminating a clearcoat, top coat to the prints.  Once we did this, my profiles then had to be recalibrated, and then my new issues came up.   I'm guessing we finally fell into the 20% that it doesn't work. 

What was really throwing me off, is that my profile would pass the CMY G7 grey balance and CMY G7 NPD balance with flying colors, but I couldn't get my primary and secondary colors to pass. just barely.  I couldn't get a good saturation on the CRPC 6.  When looking at my profiles, with my TACs maxed out (don't shun me)  I still didn't have enough inks to cut back in the color restriction curves.  I had tried Craig's suggestion of trying CPPC 3 or 4 and got a good result  with the 3, but I didn't understand why and wasn't sure if this was the correct move. 

When comparing my profile to Coated and Uncoated data sets, I'm falling right in between of being not saturated enough for coated and too saturated for uncoated.

Tom

------------------------------
Thomas Bean
Digital Support Technican
Versa-Tags Inc
Cuba MO
(573) 885-2230
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-08-2025 10:19 AM
From: Craig Maalis
Subject: Best standard set for printing on polyethylene plastic and self adhesive vinyl - UV printing

Hi Thomas,

GRACoL 2013 can be your goal, but unfortunately it isn't achievable on uncoated or substrates that aren't a number one sheet. That's why the crpc designations were developed. They maintain the gray balance and target like GRACoL, but their color space is smaller. CRPC 3 or 4 is more likely an achievable target.

Why this is important is that regardless of which target you can achieve based on press, it still has the same look/feel of GRACoL. This is especially important if you are running campaign color that must match as closely as possible despite press and substrate differences.

Hope that helps,

Craig

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Original Message:
Sent: 3/10/2025 4:14:00 PM
From: Thomas Bean
Subject: RE: Best standard set for printing on polyethylene plastic and self adhesive vinyl - UV printing

Craig and Steve,

Thanks for your inputs on this.  It defiantly makes sense and helps immensely.  I've been using CRPC 6 as a reference set up until now, because it has worked for everything, but we made a change to our workflow  for a particular product by eliminating a clearcoat, top coat to the prints.  Once we did this, my profiles then had to be recalibrated, and then my new issues came up.   I'm guessing we finally fell into the 20% that it doesn't work. 

What was really throwing me off, is that my profile would pass the CMY G7 grey balance and CMY G7 NPD balance with flying colors, but I couldn't get my primary and secondary colors to pass. just barely.  I couldn't get a good saturation on the CRPC 6.  When looking at my profiles, with my TACs maxed out (don't shun me)  I still didn't have enough inks to cut back in the color restriction curves.  I had tried Craig's suggestion of trying CPPC 3 or 4 and got a good result  with the 3, but I didn't understand why and wasn't sure if this was the correct move. 

When comparing my profile to Coated and Uncoated data sets, I'm falling right in between of being not saturated enough for coated and too saturated for uncoated.

Tom

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Thomas Bean
Digital Support Technican
Versa-Tags Inc
Cuba MO
(573) 885-2230
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