So my buddy's dad runs a small sign shop and I told him about how my neon green always comes out looking like swamp water. He said the issue wasn't the ink but the paper, told me to try a matte synthetic stock instead of glossy. I thought he was full of it since everyone says glossy makes colors pop more. But I grabbed a pack of matte polypropylene from the local art store for like 12 bucks and ran a test print. The green came out so bright it almost glowed, totally different from the muddy mess on gloss. Has anyone else run into this where the paper surface matters more than the ink profile for bright colors?
I was running a test print on my HP DesignJet last Tuesday (in a rush, as always) and it just chewed up the whole roll. The paper jammed so bad I had to take the whole front panel off to pull out the shredded bits. Turns out I forgot to switch the media thickness setting after loading a different paper type. Has anyone else had a printer just destroy a full roll like that?
I've been doing prepress for 15 years, but this one caught me off guard. I had a client's brochure come back from the press looking totally different than the proof. Their neon orange turned into a dull rust brown. I tracked it down to their supplier switching paper stocks without telling anyone. The old stock was a bright white coated sheet, the new one was a warm uncoated paper. That change alone sucked the life out of the vibrant spot colors. We had to redo 2,000 pieces at the last minute. Have any of you had a paper switch ruin a job like that?