Creating Decals with White Text or Images.

[Robert Porter]

So as some of you may remember I once had access to an Alps printer which is the only printer I know of that can print white. However I no longer have access to the printer, it finally died and my friend says he has also had difficulty sourcing the inks.

So back to the research I went. The long and the short of it is there are only really 2 options I can find for making decals on an inkjet printer with white text or images. Both require a fair amount of work to do.

First you can use Hobbycal decal paper which is marketed mostly at the model railroad builders as rolling stock and engines often have white text.

You can find out more here about this paper. Inkjet Decal Paper for Model Trains - Modeling Software this does work, and is way better than the white decal paper you can find from other vendors.

The other way I have found is the old tried and true 2 layer decals where you print the main colors on a standard clear decal paper and then print a mask image on the white decal paper and layer the clear over the white decal when applying the decals. Fussy and fiddly it still seems to be the only option that we have unless any of you can suggest a better approach.

Oh, I suppose a third approach would be to hand paint the white areas onto a clear decal.

I mourn the loss of ALPS printers!

 

[MiG Mad Marine]

You're missing a 100% working solution, white print on clear decal paper with only a cheap old printer printer .. I have never told anyone. and it seems I'm the only one that knows.

 

[T Bolt]

Sounds interesting. Can you tell us more about it

 

[Crimea_River]

Yes, do tell.

 

[Wurger]

I agree. I would like to hear about that as well.

 

[Wayne Little]

Let the cat outa the bag man...

 

[Crimea_River]

 

[Airframes]

I can smell something .............

 

[Wurger]

The invisible decals for the invisible aircraft model.

 

[Airframes]

Wonder if there's any pictures ..... Arrgh !

 

[Wurger]

 

[mikewint]

Indeed, me three...especially as WHITE cannot be produced by an ordinary CMYK printer.
In the print industry, cyan, magenta, yellow and black are used as the primary colors. When you mix all the colors, the result is gray. Consequently you will not get anything on the paper with a basic CMYK [Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (black)] inkjet or laser printer. The CMYK color mixing is subtractive, meaning that it requires the base that is being colored to have all colors (i.e., White) So that it can create color variation through subtraction:

White - Cyan - Yellow = Green

White - Yellow - Magenta = Red

White - Cyan - Magenta = Blue

White is represented as 0 cyan, 0 yellow, 0 magenta, and 0 black – effectively, 0 ink for a printer that simply has those four cartridges. This works great when you have white media, as "printing no ink" simply leaves the white exposed, but as you can imagine, this doesn't work for non-white media.
If you don't have a base color to subtract from (i.e., Black), then it doesn't matter what you subtract from it, you still have the color Black.
RGB color is the mixing of light and is additive mixing so that Red + Green + Blue = White
Now there are special printers which can operate in the CMYW color space, or otherwise have a white ink or toner. These can be used to print light colors on top of dark or otherwise non-white media. These solvent and "eco" solvent printers include white and metallic in the inkset configuration, including printers from Epson, Mimaki, Roland, and many more. These printers rely on software RIPs to provide instructions to these printers. In addition to this, the files need to be "set up" properly using spot color layers or alpha channels in various image editing or drawing programs.
At this time, only Epson sells a white print cartridge for use with its inkjet printers. This option might work for small print runs on your home printer, but the cost of the white ink is much higher than typical inks.
The Epson Stylus Pro WT7900 is over $3,000 and a full set of ink cartridges is over $1,200. The white ink cartridge alone is about $300.

 

[Wurger]

To sum up.. .. the white colour is actually the clear one. The white tone is achieved because of the white paper as the background. A CMYK printer doesn't apply any colour at the area where the white has to be . Therefore, if you use a paper sheet of yellow or of other colours you will get a colour of the paper at the area instead of the white.

 

[mikewint]

Right, sort of, he was talking about making a decal, so a white area on a decal would have to be an opaque solid white else the color of the model would show through. The zero ink white only works if you are printing on a white backround. Just like painting. You can't mix colors to make white

 

[Wurger]

Exactly..

 

[Crimea_River]

Seems our friend remains "the only one who knows" how to print white on clear decal paper with a "cheap old printer".

I'm still waiting for the punch line.

 

[Wurger]

By the cheap old printer he has meant a dot-matrix printer I guess.

 

[mikewint]

I'm guessing not as they print like the old-time typewriters, i.e. by striking a ink-soaked ribbon. Though now that I think about it, I had a typewriter that had a white plastic ribbon with a white coating on the paper side. If you mis-typed a letter you could strike over it and then re-type the correct letter, kind of a white carbon paper.
But none of the above would fill in a shape

 

[Wurger]

I see.