Colour Consistency: Why Do Reorders Sometimes Look Different?
At Custom Sticker Print, we pride ourselves on high-quality digital printing. However, a common question we get from long-time customers is:
"I reordered the exact same stickers as last month, but the colour looks slightly different. Why?"
If you have ever noticed a slight shift in shade between batches, don't worry—you aren't imagining things. Here is the honest explanation of how Digital Toner Printing works and what to expect.
1. The Nature of Digital Toner (Heat & Humidity)
Unlike traditional Offset printing (which mixes liquid ink), our high-end digital presses use Dry Toner fused with heat.
Toner is sensitive to the environment.
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Temperature & Humidity: A sticker printed on a humid rainy day in Markham might look 5-10% different than one printed on a dry winter day, even if we use the exact same digital file and machine settings.
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Machine Calibration: Our presses calibrate daily, but slight "drift" is a natural characteristic of digital printing technology.
2. The Industry Standard
In the commercial printing industry, a colour variation of Delta E 3-5 (approx. 10% shift) is considered acceptable for digital printing.
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What this means: While we strive for a 100% match, a slight shift in brightness or tone between two different orders is considered "within tolerance" and not a defect.
3. How We Minimize the Shift
We know brand consistency is important. Here is what we do to keep it as close as possible:
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Daily Calibration: We strictly maintain our machines to keep colours stable.
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CMYK Profiles: We use standardized colour profiles to ensure the best possible output from your file.
4. How You Can Help (Critical for Reorders)
If you have a strict brand colour (like a specific logo blue) and you are placing a Reorder, here is the best way to ensure a match:
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Send us a Physical Sample: If you have a leftover sticker from your previous batch, mail it to us or drop it off at our Markham facility.
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Why? We can scan the old sticker and manually adjust our machine curves to match that specific batch, rather than relying on the digital file alone.
Summary
Digital printing allows for fast, affordable, and high-quality stickers without expensive setup fees. The trade-off is a minor potential for colour variance between runs.
We appreciate your understanding of this technology as we continue to deliver the best custom stickers across Canada.
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