Rough Comparison - Book Cover Printed vs. Original File
Art Geek Zoo Vol 1: Hidden Talent is printed via Ka-Blam's service. They're a printing company that specializes in comics and is a great service for the indie comics community. Speaking of printing, I also printed a flyer in support of the book and my game Guitar Fretter. On the flyer I feature the cover of the book. The flyer was printed via Gotprint.com, a solid, economical service that I've also used for business cards.
Nope this isn't a sponsored post. A fellow comic artist, the talented Jonathan Rector who does the drawing video series Scribbles With Jonathan, asked on twitter about Ka-Blam's color accuracy. So I thought I'd share this picture and summary of my experience with their service and since I had it available for comparison - the flyer too.
You'll notice a color shift and value shift among each of the covers. The color accuracy of Ka-Blam is solid. The color "temperature" doesn't shift between the digital file and print for Ka-Blam so the small shift in grey tones towards darker doesn't bother me a bit. The Gotprint.com flyer shifts color tone a fair amount but for the intended use I and low cost I find it acceptable.
The photo was taken in conditions that could be brighter, but for a quick snapshot I opted for fairly-even lighting instead of abundant lighting which would brighten up some of the grey tones.
I'm especially pleased with how the book looks in print. I've done two small print runs through Ka-Blam and they both look very consistent to one another. Beyond that, I've bought books from other comic creators that were printed through Ka-Blam and every one of them looks good.