In The Eye Of The Beholder

The experiments continue. I'm sure anybody who read the last entry was thinking "Why, oh why, don't you pick the paint first and THEN match the decal?"  As I've written before, sometimes the most obvious thing escapes me. It's only over time that I realize what everyone else sees immediately (if not sooner). You are absolutely right. Over the past few days I have been going over the color charts looking for what I think is the closest to the prototype. I then use the HTML color code to produce that color in Paint Shop Pro.

Now that it appears that the background matching problem is solved (almost) there are two other issues to solve. First off I need something that REALLY seals the decals. The Testor's fixer doesn't seem to work at all. I've also tried spraying the sheet with Floquil clear flat. This works better, but if left in the water too long the decals are easily messed up. It may be that the water saturates the paper and destroys the decals from that side. Secondly, there are still colors that don't translate well. So far the reds, yellows and browns seem to work fine. The blue and orange in the CNJ colors does not seem to work like it should...

Printed Decal Fail

The colors on the herald with the blue Statue of Liberty, the lettering on the Jersey Central Lines and the smaller class markings are almost as they should be although the blue is lighter than the actual paint...

Blue Angle Blue?

Blue Angel Blue

The heralds with "yellow" Liberty should be orange. I found this may be the result of layering in Paint Shop Pro. Sometimes a color on a lower layer combines with colors on the upper layer. I was able to fix this by merging the layers before cutting and pasting into Visio. 

Back to the color charts where I found Tamiya's Royal Blue, a much darker shade. I copied the code into Paint Shop Pro and the result looked much better...

Royal Blue

To make sure the color works I cut and pasted the herald into Visio...

Checking Color in Visio

So far, so good. On the computer screen it looks fine. The final printed color can be a lot different. I made a test print. I try to use paper with a better finish than the rock bottom copy paper. The ink is less likely to "blot". I placed the print-out by a window in natural light and snapped a picture...

Test Print Under Natural Light

As a final test I took a photo of the printout and the shell together...

Final Test

At this point I ran into that bugaboo that has caused SO much controversy amongst model railroaders. In the image there is a definite difference between the two oranges. The paint on the shell appears to be warmer than the printed version. To my eye they are so close I cannot tell them apart! The orange on both are nearly the same shade. Same with the blue. This is true under natural, fluorescent and incandescent light. What the camera sees and what I see are two different things. I would like to drag out my 35mm camera to see how the colors appear on film but I'll settle for the evidence of my eyes.

One thing that is evident from this exercise is just how various factors affect the "actual" color of an object. Rather than try to get a "perfect" mix that obviously cannot exist I'm going with good enough. As long as it looks the way I think it should it's fine. Weathering with washes and chalks will provide the variations we see in actuality. 

Having said that and making the corrections suggested by these tests I think it's time to start applying these decals 

Regards,

Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad