Magenta looks dark red when printed
I am new to letterpressing my fiance and I decided to build our first letterpress and our having trouble with colors coming out as they are shown in the pantone library. we are using saunders cold press white paper to make coasters. we tried with our rubine red rubber base and got a dark brick red look. then we tried with a magenta oil base and got the same result a dark brick red look. I don’t understand why neither of the colors look pinkish at all like they do in the pantone book. is there a different process for printing with magenta ink or rubine to get it to look like its true color.
the purple we got also looks kind of dark too then it should when printing
The Pantone guides are printed using offset lithography. You are printing letterpress. Most Pantone colors printed letterpress will look nothing like the colors in the Pantone guide.
Ink is stuff that is meant to be applied thinly. It’s very very very saturated stuff. You’re probably A. hand inking and B. Inking very thick, given how you’ve described your printing.
Could you tell us a bit more about how you’re applying ink? What kind of tool are you using?
How does the ink get on whatever you’re printing from?
You’re likely not adding any tint base to the ink and using it full strength. Inks are formulated for mechanisms and machines that often meter the ink; so the pigment (the stuff that gives it color) to vehicle (the stuff that gives it body, the ‘glue’ in the ink equation) concentration is very high. It’s meant to be this way so that printers who use, for example, offset presses with big trains (long lines of rollers) can meter the amount of ink that is output. Very very minute adjustments affect inks density, and therefore it’s color.
I am going out on a limb here and I’m going to say you’re overinking/applying the ink as strongly as it can be, and that you should try to print with a much thinner amount of ink- alternatively, you can reduce the density of the pigment by mixing small amounts of your ink with a transparent base. This will make a ‘tint’ of the ink that will be closer to your desired result.
Sorry you’re having so much trouble, but it’s a steep learning curve and it might do you well to take some lessons somewhere and pick up a bit of experience on a press with someone who can guide you- if at all possible.
Best of luck.
hmmm but when I look online at magenta letterpressed I can find several images where people used magenta ink to letterpress and it looks like magenta while mine looks like brick red. Also that is the color chart that was recommended for us to use by boxcar printing specifically for letterpressing
Yes, but they were using letterpresses my friend. Also using the kind with inking systems or they modified the ink, no doubt. You’re using a homemade press that- no offesnse- isn’t a letterpress. You’re hand inking. That’s Okay! Proof presses without inking systems and hand presses work the same way. You can do this- you clearly and simply need to know a bit more about how before you do so.
Also- it’s not “boxcart” it’s “boxcar”. People here like terminology, especially, but also brand names etc.
Candelar and preece, voonerduk, and challange are not brands hahaha
thank you we were inking by hand and waiting on our inking bearer strips which should come tomorrow
Is there a transparent base that you would recommend and how much would you add to the ink when mixing it
Well, you need to add some, test, add some more, test, realize you added too much and add some more ink, test, then realize you won’t match the book, test some more, cry, then you can decide it’s good enough. You’re not likely to get consistent results without an excellent roller, the bearer strips you talked about, a ton of practice and patience, and time spent not on the internet/rather time spent printing.
Seriously, practice and experience and a few pointers are the best tools here.
Signed,
snarky and just kidding around in New York
should I use pantone transparent white is that the transparent base you mean to make the magenta or the rubine red look more like what I want or is it some other kind of transparent base you speak of
Describing it by the pantone book will probably not help you too much- start thinking in terms of ink and change your philosophy and expectations to reflect the medium, grasshopper. For only then will you truly be able to appreciate the organic tendencies of hand printing.
But really, ask your ink supplier or whoever you’re mailorder gettingbuying your ink from for transparent base. there are different bases for oil and rubber base ink, you should also probably pick a system and stick to it (rubber or oil).
You can, if you are not getting good results from the tin and not producing a cmyk process use a mix . put a blob of “opaque” white on a mix board and add the tiniest amount of magenta and i mean tiny amount , dab it out with a finger on a sample ofthe jobs stock, if its too light keep adding tiny amounts of colour till you hit the shade you want or just below the shade you want and then try a pull off your press.
Always add colour to the white not the other way round and if using opaque then you only need a miniscule amount of colour to make a drastic change to the white .
When using transparent white the effect is opposite to opaque in that you use less mix white in relation to the colour .
brucewayne,
I can’t help you with your over-inking problems, but I can help you “get along” on this site. Using the terms “letterpressing” and “letterpressed” makes most member’s skin crawl. It’s “letterpress printing” and “letterpress printed”. I know it’s insignificant, but sometimes it ends up setting you up for some angry responses.
I’m curious to see photos of your letterpress — I think that experimentation is a healthy part of a letterpress hobby, and I’m always interested to see home made presses.
Everyone was new to this at some point. Do not be discouraged. You are using too much ink.
When a press picks up ink and distributes it, it is a very very small amount.
If you are using something home made you are going to have a really hard time, if you can at all - matching results you see from a proper press.
To mix the ink, look at the cmyk values for example…
A coral colour is 76% magenta, 76% yellow. Start with a tea spoon of opaque white ( that could be a lot of ink depending on what you are doing ). Think of that tea spoon as 100%, now add the rubine red and yellow. Do not add an equivalent of 76% start off with about a fraction of that.
Mix it well. I mix my ink on a piece of clear acrylic. When I scrape it off with the ink knife the thin sheen that is left is usually pretty close to what it will look like when it prints.
Hope that helps.
Paul