While TBB Solutions strives to bring the best possible product to the client, nominal shifts in color can occur when printing. While we try to keep this at a minimum through constant calibration, it must also be understood that this variance is a reality in all of the printing industry.

Whether you are printing on a traditional press or a color copier, small shifts in humidity, paper coating, ink mixtures or just plain old mechanical variance can cause colors to shift slightly over time. Colors that are made of varying percentages of two or more CMYK values are more susceptible to this variance due to the combined effect of slight shifts in the colors representation on the press. If a color's value is 50% cyan and nothing else, a shift of 2% in either direction will be nearly unnoticeable. However, if a color is made up of 10% Cyan, 10% Magenta and 10% yellow, a 2% shift in each of the colors would be fairly noticeable since there is now a 6% shift in the final, combined color. This becomes even more noticeable when the colors used are of a lower CMYK value, since a 2% shift on 10% coverage will have a much greater impact. It is for this reason that PMS colors were created and are used in some traditional, offset print shops. PMS colors, however, require a completely separate set of ink for each individual color that is printed, and are not supported by BCE since we exclusively a process (4 color) shop.

We also use a different print method than traditional offset print shops. Where regular printing presses use inks to make up the colors on a page, digital presses (such as ours) use toner. Toner is basically a latex layer that is fused to the sheet of paper. These layers of cyan, magenta yellow and black are layered over each other to create colors. The difference in these two processes is this: while toner will fuse to the sheet of paper, ink actually is partially absorbed into the paper. This difference in interaction with the substrate (paper or other material to be printed on) can affect how colors of the same value can look depending on what process was used to print them.

Here's is an example:

In printing, one of the most basic colors is "Reflex Blue." On an offset press, this color is achieved though mixing equal parts of cyan and magenta (C=100%, M=100%.) This results in a dark, navy blue. If this color value was produced on a digital press, the color, while still containing the same exact color values, turns out a dark purple. Between the way the colors interact with materials that it is printed on and the way the colors interact with each other, the color turns out differently.

That is why we do not recommend purchasing a Process CMYK color swatch book . (Click here for an example of a swatch book) The machine that produced the chart will not match up directly with ours, and small deviations may result.

The best color reference we can offer is our samples. Each sample was produced on our press and is therefore easily reproducible. To convey color, all you need to do is say, "I need red like the truck on the Marks Towing card." If you are referencing a photo, BE AS SPECIFIC AS POSSIBLE. An alternative method would be to scan the sample card and circle the color you want. Either method of communication will work. We just need to know exactly what color you are referring to.