ClaireHelen

Thanks. I am using a good entry level professional printer with 8 colours and have had the decal paper profiled so at least the colours I see on my calibrated monitor using soft proofing are what I now see in print. that said a number of the colours I would like to print to match the lego are out of gamut so won’t be spot on I have used available codes as a starting point and then adjust what i see on screen And print to try to match the brick colour some are just impossible colours for my printer So have to let it be slightly off or print to a different colour brick can get a good match a lot of the time but you notice it when you take a close up photo afterwards thanks again

Thanks. Am using transparent for light backgrounds and white for dark where transparent doesn’t work or alters the colours too much. I make a lot of figures on a white or very light torso so the clear work well but for the darker colours just trying to colour Match the print as much as I can. I have calibrated the monitor and had a profile made for me for the paper so it’s just some trial and error now to try to get the colours as close as I can.

Thanks. I am drawing them in essentially the right image size in Photoshop but at 600 ppi so as to be high enough resolution to keep the lines and detail all crisp. My photo printer can print the images out at 4800 dpi so the colours come out well and when zoomed in for a macro shot you see a nice uniform colour unlike what I get from my regular desktop printer. I had been using Powerpoint and ensuring the option is selected to keep the image high quality then using the printer driver to manage colour from there as I have had a custom profile made for the waterslide paper I use. I was wondering if you get any better results with other applications as using photoshop to create a sheet to print was less attractive than the office apps I had been using but it does look like so long as you ensure no app downgrades the image quality and then I let the printer profile manage the rest it should be ok. Next on to colour matching. Even with a calibrated monitor and profiled paper and printer, matching some colours is a right pain. Even with a good printer there are still plenty of colours out of gamut for the paper profile I have been using. I may need to see if better waterslide decal paper makes a difference and try something else than the cheaper one I am using now. Thank you all for your advice.

Thank for this much appreciated. I create them in photoshop so will try that out and see how it goes.

Thanks you

I have been reading through the resources here which I have found very useful. I have a question about applications used to print decals which I am not sure if it has been asked before but apologies if it has. Is there any preferred application to print the decal designs out when drawn in terms of whether any application provides better results than others ? My designs are rastor based but drawn at 600 ppi so look good on screen. The designs are made using the sRGB colour space but I use an inkjet that prints at 4800 dpi and have had the waterslide decal paper profiled to get the best colour match I can which works out well in terms of matching the colour on screen. I have been using MS word or even PowerPoint to put all the finished decals on one sheet and then trying to make sure the printer controls the colour matching and paper profiling to get the best results. Are these office applications the right things for me to be using to print out a sheet of decals ? I had given some thought to trying to get them together in photoshop which I used to draw the original designs but the office applications seem easier for getting them all together on one sheet rather than creating a large image in photoshop with all the designs on Are other people using office applications for printing ?

In the end I got a professional to produce a profile for the white waterslide paper for the printer driver or the drawing software to use and has made an amazing difference. I can now print the colours I see on screen at last. Now just need to test out what happens to them over various brick colours when applied.

Thanks. I think I will need some trial and error. I will try the clear and white decal sheets and print some torso designs to them in variations on the colour I want and then see which ones best work and apply to some bricks to test them out thank you.

Hi Am new to the site and have been looking at the previous posts on Minifigure customisation with much interest. I started recently making my own custom designs for friends initially just using as simple drawing app before moving on to Photoshop and a graphics tablet. I am happy with my torso designs now although I need to do a little work to rationalise what the printer can actually print out in terms of detail. I originally printed the torso designs onto glossy stickers (Avery Bottle labels) and covered these in clear tape before cutting them out and applying them and was happy with the results I was getting. I am now starting to move away from the stickers to clear and white background (for darker torso's and those where I need white) waterslide decal paper. I am now using a Canon Pixma Pro 100s printer which produces stunning images when it has the paper and the ICC profile of it to match etc and am now at the stage of experimenting with printing to the waterslide decals which is the expensive bit. I usually print an A4 sheet of deigns with very subtle colour differences between the torsos with colour code underneath it and compare to the LEGO torso I am trying to match with about 20 other variations on it to find out which one matches the actual lego colour when the sheet is printed. For this to work I have to print out these test sheets onto the decal paper so I can see what it looks like. My monitor calibration looks good when comparing a printed photo to the screen image when printed to the correct paper but for the waterslide it is more difficult and neither photoshop or the printer knows the paper being used. Also the resolution I print at I need to play with to get the best looking figures to a good macro shot whilst also accepting that in the absence of the printer knowing that sort of paper and having the ICC profile for it, any change in resolution can affect the outputted colours as well. Before embarking on another expensive exercise on test printing to decal sheets at different resolutions and for all the colours I want to print at I was wondering if you had any advice on where to start ? I am guessing the decal paper could be considered as a matt or glossy photo paper rather than a plain one? What do you set the paper output to in the printer when you print to decal paper to get the best colour matching ? Many thanks Claire