Using photoshop what would you say is the best method to use to get the colors on the monitor (or the colors the client wants) to match when printed. What things should I consider? This is targeted more specifically at plastic gift cards.

Contact the printer and ask him about all the specifics. Save yourself a hellofaheadache.

That's the problem. I am starting a new job that designs gift cards and their biggest concern is color matching, they also print the cards using photoshop. I have some experience with color management, but not with gift cards, umph!

Cheryl, this may help.

http://www.photographyreview.com/cat/color-management/color-management-software/PLS_4333CRX.ASPX

Can i ask how your printing onto the plastic?
Are you using dye-sublimation or some other method.

You need to make sure that the you and the customer are using the same colour profile to view images.
Also if your printing through photoshop we find its best to turn off colour managment in the colour settings and set the printer profile to the same as what the cutomer uses.
If you do use dye-sublimation to print onto plastic etc then thats a different story, the colours change dramatically when the image is pressed and the only way to get acurate colours is to profile the finished item using a profile maker.

But the most important thing is the that you and the customer are using the same colour profiles.

Oh and if anyone thinks i'm wrong please feel free to correct me


Hope this helps

Get Sean (TheShaman) in here ASAP! He's printer-based skills. Isn't BigBuck too?

what about those screen colour calibrators Paul suggested? Anybody ever tried those?

http://spyder.datacolor.com/

Thanks everyone for your input, I found a couple things on the internet that have helped with my issue. So I thought I would share for those who are curious....


http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.php

and

http://www.logoorange.com/color/color-codes-chart.php

Thank you sonic.
I really like the information.I am Roger Willson,
I like the information that you provided. I exstreamly thanking you. Be connected with me and help after this time also.

Good morning from Sweaty Old Vancouver Area!

Okay - I've been a Spyder man for years now. There is no way your eye is gonna do the job. Don't take it personally... it is just that our brain colour corrects so well that even a bad monitor set up starts looking correct after a few minutes. That is where a colour calibration device comes in. It measure WAVELENGTHS (the thing that makes us see colours) in a clean scientific way. No "brain" interpretation".
There are a few different devices out there and they all do the same basic thing. The only one I've tried that sucked was a thing called the HUEY (looks like a fat pen that you stick on your monitor) - but I hear they've improved it now too.

Yes - oh my gawd - these things cost money! but you are at a point where you are MAKING MONEY from your computer graphics work. So INVEST IN BEING GOOD at what you do and get one of these things. You can get a Spyder2 quite affordably now, though the SPyder3 is really nice and does its work much faster than the #2 model.

(note: these things are very cool - i've got my wife's computer, my laptop, and my desktop calibrated and images LOOK THE SAME ON ALL OF THEM. I even calibrated my mom-in-law's crappy $200 used laptop and it looks pretty darned close to the good monitors now!)

Okay - I've got to go find a refridgerator to crawl into (I'm gonna have to start a thread on The Killer Heat Wave Of 2009 soon... ) so PM me if you have any questions on this stuff. And be glad I didnt' recommend the 400 page book on Colour Management that I told YerPalAl to get... now that is a Fun Read, let me tell you! Start with the colour calibrator device - it will solve 87% of your prolems out of the box.

I use the Colormunki Design to calibrate my screens. And I can say there is a BIG diffrence in how images views on a non-calibrated screen and a calibrated screen.

At work we use the Gretag Macbeth 'Eye One'
Its not cheap by any means, but will calibrate anything and will profile just about anytyhing also.
Its also very easy to use.

Yes, I've heard the Munki and the One-Eye are equally as good as the Spyder. Basically, with images, the colour is either RIGHT or it is WRONG. So they all end up at the same place.

I know you can get the Spyder2 (which did me and my business good for many years) for well under $100 US. The Spyder3 is more in the price range of the ColorMunki and EyeOne systems.

Yeh the i1 was expensive, we got the i1xt bundle for around £2000 from ColourConfidence.com
Lucky i didn't have to pay for it myself

But i get to use it when i want and so can profile all my stuff if i need to.