[Preview] Chipmatic - A tool for quickly designing chips with parameters (for Tina ceramics, etc.) (68 Viewers)

[Gus]

Inlay Templates is an amazing idea!

Will ponder on what would be most useful if I were to use the chip and chime in again. Great looking product!

 

[GreatWhiteDope]

Tina recently changed her sublimation dye printer, which seems to generally be more color accurate to provided CMYK colors (assumed best format). Only main thing Tina prefers is to have all of the final art vectorized (chip, edge spots, rolling edges).

There are issues with colors here/there, but for the most part the chips come out close enough (unless someone tries to color match inlays... spoiler alert - don't).

Case in point of Cratty's guidance...

Submitted artwork...

Chip from Tina on left. Same chip after having labels redone by Gear.

 

[Colquhoun]

Case in point of Cratty's guidance...

Submitted artwork...

Chip from Tina on left. Same chip after having labels redone by Gear.
View attachment 1586795

The issue is that Tina sends her labels out to a 3rd party for printing. Also, the chips are printed dye-sublimation on a ceramic blank, and the labels are probably some form of CMYK digital printing on vinyl. Using the same CMYK values can produce wildly different colors due to differing printing processes and substrate.
It's always a gamble.

 

[LotsOfChips]

But in @GreatWhiteDope's pictures, the label is fairly close to the design, but the chip itself isn't even close

 

[Jabinator]

I mean... I have wondered if she'd be interested.

don't... I may be judgemental here, but I think they will just rip your idea and create their own asset. I say this because this is what they do with graphic designs and "private" molds.. I wouldn't trust them in that matter.

 

[Gus]

Case in point of Cratty's guidance...

Submitted artwork...

Chip from Tina on left. Same chip after having labels redone by Gear.
View attachment 1586795

I'd guess the printer saw this chip design with the same inlay color as the chip color and just assumed that was wrong. Their customers want (or the big boss demands) that the inside looks like a label. And so it's a trivial change for them to adjust the color. I imagine people have just submitted logos or text and then the standard policy is to adjust the inlay background color to roughly match the chip color across the set (dark red background on a red chip, darker blue background on a blue chip).

Classic problem with suppliers who are used to serving customers who are assumed to be dullards. Don't have the customer service protocol to recognize - hey this is nonstandard, should we clarify with the customer? - but rather just go "that looks wrong, we'll fix it and print it better." This is amplified if you're dealing with a sales rep at Tina, who then passes it off to a different company for the printing or fulfillment, and it's that second company that doesn't have the feedback loop to first contact Tina so they can contact you...

 

[OutOfTown]

The issue is that Tina sends her labels out to a 3rd party for printing. Also, the chips are printed dye-sublimation on a ceramic blank, and the labels are probably some form of CMYK digital printing on vinyl. Using the same CMYK values can produce wildly different colors due to differing printing processes and substrate.

That's what color profiles are for. They do not solve every problem, but they are helpful in so many ways. Does Tina provide profiles for the printers/media used, or does she recommend specific standard profiles for art files? From the looks of it there was either no color management at all, or deliberate changes on the side of the label printing company. Both should not happen in a professional environment.

 

[GreatWhiteDope]

I apologize for hijacking this thread. Back to the original design tool, I think it is very cool and allows expanded creativity.

 

[OutOfTown]

Well, not completely hijacked. If Tina could provide color profiles, they would be most helpful for the soft proof feature that @QuietMaple previewed in #38

 

[QuietMaple]

The color discussion is interesting to me too I'd love to have a useful soft proof feature, but I'm realizing that's probably going to be very hard without a color profile from her. I might be able to build up a "close enough" color profile for the chip bodies themselves if I can get my hands on a physical color target. The process would be:
1. Photograph existing chips from Tina (recent chips printed with her new printer) in the same photo with the color target.
2. Normalize the colors of the chips in the photo based on how the color target appears in the photo based on the particular lighting and camera that I use
3. Compare the normalized chip colors to the original CMYK/RGB colors that were sent to Tina, and measure the difference.

With enough data points I think we could build a color profile (or LUT) that would give a "good enough" sense of the distortion in previews. But... I will say I've only learned about color profiles for this project, so I'm by no means an expert.

 

[OutOfTown]

The color discussion is interesting to me too I'd love to have a useful soft proof feature, but I'm realizing that's probably going to be very hard without a color profile from her. I might be able to build up a "close enough" color profile for the chip bodies themselves if I can get my hands on a physical color target. The process would be:
1. Photograph existing chips from Tina (recent chips printed with her new printer) in the same photo with the color target.

What I can predict: Photographing will likely not be accurate enough. As you mention in your step 2, you introduce additional color spaces into the equation, which you'd need to take into account.

Typically, you would print a set of color patches with predefined CMYK values onto the target medium. Then color measurements are taken with a spectrophotometer (and the measuring device needs to be suitable for the medium used - a device that works with paper does not necessarily work for ceramic, too). Since the CMYK values we started with are known, a color profile can then be calculated from these and the values taken from the measurements.

You could check companies like Calibrite, if you are interested in how these solutions look like for home users, or X-Rite for more professional solutions.

However - and this is a big however - this will only help if color management is done right at every step of the production process. Even if you could get color samples printed (which would only be a matter of paying for it), and get a high quality color profile from them: The color profile needs to be applied at the very end of the process chain, while printing. It is in this step, that color values are converted from the working color space used to draw the design to the color space of the printer to get accurate results.

Color management is tedious and can become pretty complicated. In the end, if there is no support from Tina's side for it, there is not much we can do.

 

[Hunter_Makoy]

What I can predict: Photographing will likely not be accurate enough. As you mention in your step 2, you introduce additional color spaces into the equation, which you'd need to take into account.

Typically, you would print a set of color patches with predefined CMYK values onto the target medium. Then color measurements are taken with a spectrophotometer (and the measuring device needs to be suitable for the medium used - a device that works with paper does not necessarily work for ceramic, too). Since the CMYK values we started with are known, a color profile can then be calculated from these and the values taken from the measurements.

You could check companies like Calibrite, if you are interested in how these solutions look like for home users, or X-Rite for more professional solutions.

However - and this is a big however - this will only help if color management is done right at every step of the production process. Even if you could get color samples printed (which would only be a matter of paying for it), and get a high quality color profile from them: The color profile needs to be applied at the very end of the process chain, while printing. It is in this step, that color values are converted from the working color space used to draw the design to the color space of the printer to get accurate results.

Color management is tedious and can become pretty complicated. In the end, if there is no support from Tina's side for it, there is not much we can do.

Yeah having a soft proofing method would be great but probably very challenging. Some colors come out exact, some darker, some lighter, some by quite a bit. From what I've seen its not as simple as just bumping the numbers one way or another, everything has to be done color by color and will be different results for the chip vs. the label on hybrids.

I wish them the best of luck though!!!

 

[QuietMaple]

Just wanted to drop an update here to keep you all updated on my progress. Nothing new exciting to show off from this past week, but I have been working on a couple essential features, such as:

1. The ability to add chips to sets, and the display of chip previews within the sets
2. Automatically saving chips/sets to the browser's localstorage. This means if you refresh the page you don't lose all of your work.
3. Tweaking the export format to make it more legible

 

[BigGrizz]

Not all heroes wear capes.

 

[Colquhoun]

What I can predict: Photographing will likely not be accurate enough. As you mention in your step 2, you introduce additional color spaces into the equation, which you'd need to take into account.

Typically, you would print a set of color patches with predefined CMYK values onto the target medium. Then color measurements are taken with a spectrophotometer (and the measuring device needs to be suitable for the medium used - a device that works with paper does not necessarily work for ceramic, too). Since the CMYK values we started with are known, a color profile can then be calculated from these and the values taken from the measurements.

You could check companies like Calibrite, if you are interested in how these solutions look like for home users, or X-Rite for more professional solutions.

However - and this is a big however - this will only help if color management is done right at every step of the production process. Even if you could get color samples printed (which would only be a matter of paying for it), and get a high quality color profile from them: The color profile needs to be applied at the very end of the process chain, while printing. It is in this step, that color values are converted from the working color space used to draw the design to the color space of the printer to get accurate results.

Color management is tedious and can become pretty complicated. In the end, if there is no support from Tina's side for it, there is not much we can do.

37c per chip for standard ceramics and 47c per chip for hybrids…printed, labels applied and shipped…

 

[SeanGecko]

37c per chip for standard ceramics and 47c per chip for hybrids…printed, labels applied and shipped…
View attachment 1590049

Thank you

 

[skarp0ye]

Very cool idea. It would be nice if there was a random button to roll a random chip (with optionally being able to lock some features).

 

[QuietMaple]

Very cool idea. It would be nice if there was a random button to roll a random chip (with optionally being able to lock some features).

Yes this had crossed my mind too! I think it would be super useful.

 

[skarp0ye]

Think it would be fun. Also a fun way to for you to test the app during development. I am also a software engineer.

How close is this to be ready for public testing?

 

[foreverdev]

This a fantastic idea -- can't wait to try it out.

 

[MJM]

You have another supporter here! Awesome work!

 

[Wils]

Just want to be the first to complain (on behalf of everyone) that there is a tool for designing chips being waggled under our noses and AT LEAST two weeks after being first premiered it STILL isn't available.

Have you no heart, man?

 

[OutOfTown]

37c per chip for standard ceramics and 47c per chip for hybrids…printed, labels applied and shipped…

I believe you misunderstood the intention of my post. What I wanted to say is that whatever we do (or rather what @QuietMaple adds to the designer), we will never be able to get a color representation that is accurate enough for advanced designs with color matched inlays. This would require support from Tina, and it looks like they are not running a process to provide that support.

I find the abscence of proper color management nevertheless surprising, and the low price is not an excuse for that. For comparison: You can find cheap book printing services in China who will deliver whole books - printed, bound and shipped - with an acceptable level of color management. As far as one can tell from @GreatWhiteDope 's photo, the external label printing service did a pretty good job, too. The label colors seem to be very close to the design.

Would I still consider Tina's for a custom set? Well, yes. It is probably the best option in the price range. I would adjust my expectations accordingly, and I would not attempt to do color matched labels, especially not faux shaped labels.

 

[Colquhoun]

I believe you misunderstood the intention of my post. What I wanted to say is that whatever we do (or rather what @QuietMaple adds to the designer), we will never be able to get a color representation that is accurate enough for advanced designs with color matched inlays. This would require support from Tina, and it looks like they are not running a process to provide that support.

I find the abscence of proper color management nevertheless surprising, and the low price is not an excuse for that. For comparison: You can find cheap book printing services in China who will deliver whole books - printed, bound and shipped - with an acceptable level of color management. As far as one can tell from @GreatWhiteDope 's photo, the external label printing service did a pretty good job, too. The label colors seem to be very close to the design.

Would I still consider Tina's for a custom set? Well, yes. It is probably the best option in the price range. I would adjust my expectations accordingly, and I would not attempt to do color matched labels, especially not faux shaped labels.

SInce we are providing the requested CMYK art and not really knowing what printers they are using, it's already off to a rocky start. I think Tina prints chips in 6 color and her label supplier prints using god-knows-what. In order to reel this all in would require quite a bit more work on Tina's part. Hell, she stopped offering printed proofs of chips very early on, even when we offered to pay extra for them.
My guess is that if we were to somehow convince her to start taking on color profiles, managing the color matching issues between her own chip printing staff and her label provider, the cost would go up. And it would likely be dramatic.
For these reasons, I'm happy to get cheap chips...things like colors not matching, an occasional spinner etc. is the cost of doing business, imo.

 

[BigGrizz]

I feel like things would be easier if Tina used pantones. But alas...

 

[Colquhoun]

I feel like things would be easier if Tina used pantones. But alas...

But she doesn’t print with Pantone inks.

 

[BigGrizz]

Ya... Its just such a consistent system that would help us out if she did.

 

[Colquhoun]

Ya... It’s just such a consistent system that would help us out if she did.

Yes, it’s consistent, but requires that you print using inks that are Pantone colored. CMYK is totally different.

 

[FearlessFred]

This looks fantastic, cannot wait for the release. Great work

 

[OutOfTown]

Ya... Its just such a consistent system that would help us out if she did.

As Colquhoun mentioned, the chip printer does not use spot colors, but process colors. Pantone colors would need conversion into whatever color system the printer uses. In this case, there is no real difference between the instructions "print the color with 48% C, 18% M, 0% Y, 0% K in the FOGRA 39 CMYK color space" and "print the color with the code '278C' in the Pantone color system". It is actually the same color, and it needs to be converted into the color space of the printer to determine how much of each ink is needed to print exactly this color. This is assuming that this color can be printed, which is not always the case (and one of the reasons why the finished product can be different from the design).

Long story short: The final result will always depend on Tina.

For completeness: Spot color systems like Pantone contain many colors which cannot be printed using process colors; this is one of the reasons spot colors exist. Using Pantone colors without knowing which of them can be printed on chips would likely make things worse.