摘要 |
A process for manufacturing three-dimensionally shaped polymeric sheets and laminates with color-matched digitally printed full color ink jet images. A flexible thermoformable polymeric baseweb is placed in an ink jet printer and a solvent-based (non-aqueous) digital printing ink is applied directly to the baseweb, in the absence of an ink receptive layer on the baseweb, to form a decorative pattern in multiple colors in a single pass through the printer. The finished product can be thermoformed or injection molded to a three-dimensional shape. A protective topcoat can be laminated to the digitally printed sheet prior to the thermoforming and/or injection molding step. A process for making color-matched products comprises producing a software-driven image of a pattern on a screen representing a standard color print pattern; evaluating and adjusting the standard displayed on the screen using software-driven image related adjustments for hue, contrast, lightness/darkness, etc.; producing a test print by applying a decorative pattern to the baseweb by a digital ink jet printer and making an optional software-driven image-related adjustment in the standard to color match the standard to the test print image; and when the adjusted standard image displayed on the screen is acceptable, passing an image-related output to the digital ink jet printer for printing a decorative print color-matched to the accepted onscreen standard. |