Darker black for homemade decals?

[BK9300]

I'm having a go at making some manufacturer brand name and safety decals for my plow truck.  I have an HP inkjet printer that doesn't have a 'true black' setting and about the only other thing I can adjust is the setting for max DPI.  I've also set the paper type to glossy paper (and have a few more settings like that I can still try).  Test prints on white decal paper leaves the black spotty.  The safety decals are about 1/2" wide.  Any suggestions for getting a 'blacker' black?  Are there companies that will make custom decals like these?  Thanks for any suggestions.

 

spotty black is most evident on bottom two rows - the caution decals are 1/2" and 5/8" wide.

[peteski]

I use Alps printer for my decals (it uses waxy ink and uses laser decal paper), but I have dabbled with ink jets. The spots look like the black ink pulls away from those areas. I have seen this whey using photo paper on ink jets and wrong quality setting (too much ink is sprayed out from the nozzles).

What brand of decal paper are you using and is it designed specifically for ink jet printers? That paper has a special ink absorbing layer which should prevent this from occurring. If you using decal paper designed for ink jets, try other quality setting, and maybe different brand of paper.  Since you have the paper, try printing using lower quality settings (which will use less ink).

As for true black, the last HP ink jet (DeskJet 500C) I owned which was incapable of printing true black was over 25 years ago.  It could only hold one cartridge at a time: either black (K) or color (CYM) cartridge. With color images it produced black using CYM inks which resulted in muddy dark brown black. All HP ink jet printers I know of in the last 20 years always use all CYMK color inks (K is the true black).

There are also multiple companies which can custom print decals for you. But  unless you can provide vector-based artwork (like what Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, or Inkscape can), if they have to design the artwork, it will get expensive.

Edited September 12, 2024 by peteski

[BK9300]

4 minutes ago, peteski said:

I use Alps printer for my decals (it uses waxy ink), but I have dabbled with ink jets. The spots look like the black ink pulls away from those areas. I have seen this whey using photo paper on ink jets and wrong quality setting (too much ink is sprayed out from the nozzles).

What brand of decal paper are you using and is it designed specifically for ink jet printers? That paper has a special ink absorbing layer which should prevent this from occurring. If you using decal paper designed for ink jets, try other quality setting, and maybe different brand of paper.  Since you have the paper, try printing using lower quality settings (which will use less ink).

As for true black, the last HP ink jet (DeskJet 500C) I owned which was incapable of printing true black was over 25 years ago.  It could only hold one cartridge at a time: either black (K) or color (CYM) cartridge. with color images it produced black using CYM inks which resulted in muddy dark brown black. All HP ink jet printers I know of in the last 20 years always use all CYMK color inks (K is the true black).

There are also multiple companies which can custom print decals for you. But  unless you can provide vector-based artwork (like what Corel Draw, Adobe Illustrator, or Inkscape can), if they have to design the artwork, it will get expensive.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, Peter - I will have to try other printer settings.  The decal paper I'm using is 'Experts Choice", white decal film, specifically for inkjet printers.  I'll keep trying and if not successful, I'll seek out info about custom decals.

 

[rattle can man]

I have been struggling too. I have a Brother Laser jet. black always looks gray, red leans to Magenta or brown, etc. I've tried plain. photo, and decal paper. adjuste darkness, density, photo setting, calibration and everything i can think of with no effect.

 

I know Alps printers are the best for decals, but I don't have the luxury of a second printer.

 

[BK9300]

19 minutes ago, rattle can man said:

I have been struggling too. I have a Brother Laser jet. black always looks gray, red leans to Magenta or brown, etc. I've tried plain. photo, and decal paper. adjuste darkness, density, photo setting, calibration and everything i can think of with no effect.

 

I know Alps printers are the best for decals, but I don't have the luxury of a second printer.

 

The other thing I was thinking of trying was taking my decal file on a memory stick to a local stationery store (Staples, here in Vancouver) and printing the file on decal paper using one of their colour laser printers.  That might work and you only have to pay for the number of copies you make.

[rattle can man]

That's what I'm thinking of. But I need to get a full page together before I do it.

[RancheroSteve]

46 minutes ago, BK9300 said:

The other thing I was thinking of trying was taking my decal file on a memory stick to a local stationery store (Staples, here in Vancouver) and printing the file on decal paper using one of their colour laser printers.  That might work and you only have to pay for the number of copies you make.

Just be aware that you will need a different kind of decal paper for a laser printer.

[Muncie]

1 hour ago, BK9300 said:

The other thing I was thinking of trying was taking my decal file on a memory stick to a local stationery store (Staples, here in Vancouver) and printing the file on decal paper using one of their colour laser printers.  That might work and you only have to pay for the number of copies you make.

I've seen that done and the decals were much better on all colors - copy shops like Kinko's are also a possibility.

[peteski]

I use BMF laser decal paper with Alps and it is a good quality paper. But I have no experience with the ink jet version of their decal paper.  One woudl assume it also works properly.  As I mentioned, try selecting lower print quality and maybe dpi.

Yes, laser printers  (and Alps printers) need laser decal paper. It doesn't have the ink absorbing ink layer of the ink Jet decal paper.  That layer can damage Alsp and laser printers.

Also some printing service shops might be leery of feeding decal paper through their printers in a fear it will jam the printer.

[rattle can man]

I have both laser and inkjet paper. I've tried lower and higher on every setting I could find. colors are always off. I just think it is something with the design of the printers. has there ever been a thread on decal friendly printers?

 

[DJMar]

A few rambling thoughts, just my two cents, yadda yadda...

Inkjet printers, because of their design and operation, don't produce the same crisp lines and fine details as laser or thermal printers. This is especially apparent when trying to print something like vehicle lettering - or even worse, a license plate - at 1:25 scale. So, in my opinion, using an inkjet to print certain things to scale already puts you at a disadvantage.

I've had different results using different inkjet printers. Usually, the higher the quality of the printer, the better the results. But with lower end printers, I have almost always struggled with clean printing and legible details. And it seems to get worse as the print size decreases. Even a good quality inkjet will still struggle to print anywhere near the level of detail you see in a kit decal. And that's the reality that we're up against when trying to print these things at home.

Here are some examples I printed on a mid-priced inkjet. The images are obviously enlarged to show detail.

The crosses are roughly 8mm (.31 in) in diameter. Most of them are legible, but some colors printed better than others. These are printed on clear decal paper. The black looks dark here but definitely grayed out a bit on application. And yes, that's inkjet spatter due to dirty print heads. These look halfway decent at a normal viewing distance but fall short compared to a regular kit decal.

I printed this pinup on a different, more expensive inkjet on white decal paper. The decal is 11mm (.43 in) tall. You can see that even though the details are finer and the print quality is better, there is dithering along with some waviness in the lines. These actually look pretty good at a normal viewing distance, but are still not quite as clean or crisp as a kit decal.

 

5 hours ago, BK9300 said:

 Are there companies that will make custom decals like these? 

I believe that STS Scale Model Decals does custom work, but I don't know their pricing structure. You can find them at https://stsdecals.com/

[BK9300]

4 hours ago, RancheroSteve said:

Just be aware that you will need a different kind of decal paper for a laser printer.

Yes, I have some specifically for laser printers

[BK9300]

1 hour ago, DJMar said:

A few rambling thoughts, just my two cents, yadda yadda...

 

I believe that STS Scale Model Decals does custom work, but I don't know their pricing structure. You can find them at https://stsdecals.com/

Thanks, DJ, I’ll try STS as well

[Dave Van]

The software you use may also impact colors.  If whatever you are using gives you options, like spot color, CMYK, RGB, see if changing color type halps. 

I have been involved in a few decal companies. DNL Hobbies was screen printed but that meant 500 copies or more. We started experimenting with laser decals it took a lot of work and failure. Most print shops did not want to run decal paper through, back then, their $4K printer.  Then ALPS came on the market and changed everything. 

good luck 

[maxwell48098]

I have an Epson all-in-one eco-tank photo printer.  One of the reasons I bought this particular printer is that it actually has two different black tanks and inks; one for ordinary, day to day document printing, and a second for photos.  The photo black is deeper than the document black which is great when printing decals on ink jet decal paper.  As a test, when I first got it, I printed out an old decal that initially made  as a Word document, the the same decal that I had converted to JPEG photo.  The black in the JPEG version was BLACK, while the black in the doc version was a very dark gray.

 

A.J.

[peteski]

If you use bitmapped images (photos), when you create them choose a non-lossy format like PNG, GIF, or TIFF. JPG is usually lossy, which means nto only overall quality of the image can be compromised, but you usually get some unusual artifacts in the white areas of the image.  Some programs (not all) allow you to select non-lossy JPG compression, but that is rare.

Edited September 12, 2024 by peteski

[Straightliner59]

I've had decent results using online converters to SVG format. I use Blinggasm inkjet paper, which I really like, and it's less expensive than what the OP is using.

[BK9300]

3 minutes ago, Straightliner59 said:

I've had decent results using online converters to SVG format. I use Blinggasm inkjet paper, which I really like, and it's less expensive than what the OP is using.

What advantage do you find in converting to SVG format?

[Straightliner59]

1 hour ago, BK9300 said:

What advantage do you find in converting to SVG format?

SVG is for "scaleable vectored graphics". That means that the resolution is the same, no matter what size you make it. Lines stay lines, not lines of pixels.

[peteski]

2 hours ago, Straightliner59 said:

SVG is for "scaleable vectored graphics". That means that the resolution is the same, no matter what size you make it. Lines stay lines, not lines of pixels.

Yes, I mentioned vector graphics in my initial reply.  SVG is vector graphic format.  It is much easier easier to manipulate than bitmaps (JPG, etc.) without loss in quality.

[Straightliner59]

4 hours ago, peteski said:

Yes, I mentioned vector graphics in my initial reply.  SVG is vector graphic format.  It is much easier easier to manipulate than bitmaps (JPG, etc.) without loss in quality.

I mostly wanted to note that there are free online converters. Yes, they are definitely the way to go!

[BK9300]

I'm going to try all the suggestions and I got in touch with STS who are going to provide me with a proof of my decals to review - I'll go with what looks the best!

[LennyB]

Interesting topic and a lot of good information here. However, lot of missing info as well. I am not a graphics person but a printer person by trade and have troubleshot many printing issues over the years. In most cases the printer is not the cause of the problem.

As mentioned above the first thing you need to look at is quality of the file you’re trying to print. Most images you grab off the internet are going to be JPEG. These are low quality images. They are also RGB images. What that means is they are made with Red, Green and Blue colors. Your monitor is also RGB, so these images look good on the screen. In order to get something that is black all three colors have to be combined. That’s why most blacks look greyish or brownish. Most printers are CYMK, Cyan. Magenta, Yellow and K for Black. So, to print a JPEG your software program or your printer have to convert the image to CYMK. This doesn’t always convert correctly. So, your image won’t always look like what’s on the screen. In fact, it almost never will. Another reason for that is what you see on the screen is illuminated from behind and what you see on paper reflects the light.  

It was also mention above about converting files to a graphics quality image. Any converter will not improve the quality of the JPEG. It’s like trying to take an MP3 file and converting it into a wav file. It’s a lossy file format and you won’t retrieve the lost data by conversion. Converting the file can sometimes help as it probably does a better job of converting the RGB to CYMK then your printer does. But your best bet is always to start out with the best quality image in a CYMK format

There are a lot of printers on the market both good and bad. Doesn’t matter a whole lot if it’s ink, laser or wax, as long as you have the right decal paper to go with it. What’s more important is the dpi (dots per inch). If your printer is only 600 dpi then you need to go shopping for a new printer. You always want to use the highest dpi possible.

Another thing I see a lot is people using the wrong print driver. They use a generic driver that their Windows PC or MAC installed by default. Yes, you can print. But as a rule, the proper driver downloaded from the manufacturer’s website will give you more options when it comes to printing and improving the output quality.

You also need to pay attention to the “paper type” you select when you print. I’ve yet to see a printer that has a decal setting, but generally the closest setting you will find is glossy paper. The printer will make adjustments for the slick surface of the decal so the ink/toner will adhere better.

There is one last thing that effects the way the colors look. Are you using clear or while decal paper? The ink/toner/wax is actually somewhat transparent. And by design is meant to be printed on white paper and it factors the white into the equation as to how the colors come out.  So, when printed on white decal paper the color will come out brighter then on the clear. It should go without saying the color of the model will change the way the printed color looks. If you put a red decal on a blue car, you can expect it to look purple.

Sorry for being so long winded but I hope I’ve said something that can be helpful to somebody out there.

[BK9300]

1 hour ago, LennyB said:

Interesting topic and a lot of good information here. However, lot of missing info as well. I am not a graphics person but a printer person by trade and have troubleshot many printing issues over the years. In most cases the printer is not the cause of the problem...

 

Makes sense to start with the best quality file - might have to invest in a good graphics software program

[titino]

Hello, I had an HP 3420 printer, and I also print my own decals, but I never had printing problems. I did tests modifying the printing properties, the upper decal is made in economical common paper, the middle one in optimal photographic quality common paper and the lower quality optimal photographic paper. Always use the Paint program, BMP files.