GCU Forum - OPS latest batch of cards had color issues

David_134612

Full Member
artist

Posts: 231

OPS latest batch of cards had color issues
Sep 10^th, 2010, 7:45pm

We just received our 9th order from the new printer . It was a batch of 35 cards and we were disappointed to see that all the cards had a printing color problem. The color was off on the entire run of 35 cards and what was supposed to be blue color was actually printed in violet color.
Our rich blues on our underwater sealife cards lost their blue. BOO HOO

If you were not familiar with the designs color printed on previous cards, you might not recognize the issue, but when you put them side to side the color is wrong and it sticks out -blues became purple.
Our deep blue sea images became deep purple sea - and its not the same
The cards also had white flecks on the card bend which was not on previous card orders.

This was our 9 th order from the new printer and the only order we were disappointed in.
The previous 8 orders were nearly perfect , and only one other batch had white flecks on the bend, but this batch did not do well and none look like GCU cards previously printed by the same printer.

I would not dare sell these cards because they are ugly
They can do better but this batch printed on 9/9/2010 and received 9/10/2010 was not their best
Unbelievably fast - But color slipped

Back to top

GREETING CARD GALAXY:
http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/valxart

IP Logged

DENISE_132110 Gold Member artist Posts: 769	Re: OPS latest batch of cards had color issues Reply #1 - Sep 10^th, 2010, 8:54pm sorry yours were off, mine were dark but not too bad on the color shift. i posted a question about color profiles on the 24th of Aug. but have not heard anything. no, purple seas are not the same.
Back to top	db visual arts: http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/dbvisualarts IP Logged

Eve_138255 Ex Member	Re: OPS latest batch of cards had color issues Reply #2 - Sep 10^th, 2010, 10:06pm That's a bit of a worry. I don't know what issues GCU had with the previous printer, but thought their work was pretty good.
Back to top	IP Logged

Sheridan_142882

GCU Newbies
artist

Posts: 15

Re: OPS latest batch of cards had color issues
Reply #3 - Sep 10^th, 2010, 10:23pm

I work at a printers and have seen blues turn to purple. One thing you have to watch is the value of your colours in photoshop, if you have 100% Cyan and 80-90% Magenta you will get purple. If this is not the case it could be their colour profile.

I'll make sure I keep an eye out when designing new cards. Thanks for the heads up.

Back to top

Marching Antz Design:
http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/marchingantzdesign

IP Logged

David_134612

Full Member
artist

Posts: 231

Re: OPS latest batch of cards had color issues
Reply #4 - Sep 11^th, 2010, 4:09am

Printing 100% right in small batches is a tough job and Valxart sealife cards certainly push color to new depths. But on the previous 8 orders of same cards from this printer the card color were perfect. There were white flecks on some of the card bends on 2 orders, a missing invoice one order, otherwise they were perfect and delivered quite fast(next day after printing).

The 8th order was as perfect as I have ever seen a card printed, so I guess the law of card karma finally caught up with us, and we balanced with a OPS.

our cards # 667096 and 667094 have printed many times and came out beautiful

So I do not believe its the cards design , because previous ones were printed with a true watery blue and very beautiful. When we showed them they were eye catching , and people wanted them, but purple sea does not work as well.

Sometimes you just have a bad day and without knowing the true color its hard for a printer to detect incorrect color and always get it right.

Back to top

GREETING CARD GALAXY:
http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/valxart

IP Logged

David_134612

Full Member
artist

Posts: 231

Re: Cards printed 9/9 & 9/10 had color issues
Reply #5 - Sep 11^th, 2010, 4:20am

It gets worse. BOO HOO Sad

We received our 10th order (printed on 9/10/2010) and it has the same color problem as order #9 (printed 9/9/2010 ) and another 15 cards are wrong .

IF YOU HAVE RICH COLOR WATCH OUT perhaps pause until fixed

I can't buy any more cards until the color is fixed, and i have 50 cards printed wrong BOO HOO

The color seemed lighter on this batch of cards compared to previous time card was printed, but it was different from the loss of blue on the previous batch

Back to top

« Last Edit: Sep 11^th, 2010, 1:07pm by David_134612 »

GREETING CARD GALAXY:
http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/valxart

IP Logged

David_134612 Full Member artist Posts: 231	Re: OPS latest batch of cards had color issues Reply #6 - Sep 11^th, 2010, 4:24am delete
Back to top	GREETING CARD GALAXY: http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/valxart IP Logged

Shaun_131054 GCU Administrator artist Posts: 2482	Re: OPS latest batch of cards had color issues Reply #7 - Sep 11^th, 2010, 8:34pm Sorry to hear about that David. Any way you can send these cards back to us so we can have a look? We'll show these to the printing company and if they're able to make changes we'll send you reprints Shaun
Back to top	IP Logged

David_134612

Full Member
artist

Posts: 231

Re: OPS latest batch of cards had color issues
Reply #8 - Sep 12^th, 2010, 3:05am

Sure I can return them , Shaun.

Where do they need to go?
I am local and will drop them off ASAP if needed.

I do not want to risk customers getting bad cards, and I know printer had issues 9/9 & 9/10
and I want to make sure its solved before mondays run. There were color print and fold issues never before seen in previous 8 orders of the same cards from same printer. They just seemed to have a bad day. Perhaps they were affected by San Bruno gas explosion tragedy or the printer broke .

I will need to send identified good card samples that this printer previously printed,
along with sample bad cards. I suspect something went ,and when alerted they might see the issue and fix it, but there were other issues with these batches like bad card folds

order 1 to 8 (over 100 cards) were close to perfect printing jobs,
order #9 printed 9/9 had color issues , but folds were ok and
order #10 printed 9/10 had fold issue as well as color issues that started with order 9

To identify the issue it must be compared to another good card to clearly see its color is off.
Our sky blue became sky purple and deep blue sea became deep purple sea and cards are wrong
On Other cards in the batch the color shift is less clear if the card does not have blue, but

Without a comparable good card -card color is subject to interpretation and the artist image might be wrong, but many of the cards printed on several orders perfectly. So its not the card design

Back to top

« Last Edit: Sep 12^th, 2010, 9:05am by David_134612 »

GREETING CARD GALAXY:
http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/valxart

IP Logged

David_134612

Full Member
artist

Posts: 231

Re: OPS bad cards to be returned
Reply #9 - Sep 13^th, 2010, 10:21am

Shaun

This printer printed 8 orders perfectly and consistently, and I learned to see and appreciate their work but 9/9 and 9/10 they had bad days, To put it politely.
I check every card and on first 8 orders they were near perfect.

On my order 9/9 there was only a color issue-color shift-blue-purple of 10 -20 % clearly visible on 25 of 35 cards when you lay them side by side with previous good card prints
On my 9/10 order , there were color issues on 12 of 18, fold issues on 8 and many card edges were cut and coating layer was sort of flaky in a way unseen on the first 8 orders, Like the coating layer was peeling off at the edges.

I will send 4 bad-4 good card samples to the return address on the cards original shipping box.
of the 54 total cards , 12 had minor color shifts only an artist familiar with the design could recognize, and 42 cards that when compared to previous orders is quite different from the original .

I can also send the balance of the cards, if desired but might need to find and send good cards along with them. While a 10 to 20 % color shift is not major, its still looks wrong and changes the sparkle in the image and was not the way it was created or that this same printer consistently printed correctly several times, but worse was folding of cards order 9/10 that was wrong with inside white of card showing because it was folded crocked. Several cards on my order 10 had fold issues- worse than the color issues.

If there is a change in process of printing card color, we can adjust images to fit, but the printer did a great job with same cards over several different orders. We had 8 perfect orders until 9/9 & 9/10 bad orders

I will forgive them as long as problem is fixed and better quality control is implemented
Quality control was surely blind when the improperly folded cards printer 9/10 came out.
Color shift is minor- bad fold is something quality control should catch and a major card issue and looks unprofessional and I can place another order for more cards printed correctly .

Having flunked my first test after a great start , i plan to retest and continue to watch carefully
GCU is a place for the BEST cards with BEST printing ,BEST variety, BEST words
I will continue to report on test results and hope to see many more properly printed cards
Because when they are right , they are beautiful as this printer
proved many times until last 2 orders when it fell apart.

I plan to order again today to see if they are back on track

Back to top

GREETING CARD GALAXY:
http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/valxart

IP Logged

Eve_138255 Ex Member	Re: OPS latest batch of cards had color issues Reply #10 - Sep 13^th, 2010, 1:45pm In my last order, I too had cards that were badly folded, but as I live in Australia and needed the cards urgently, I decided to put up with it.
Back to top	IP Logged