I am still a bit confused on which paper to use and when. If I have an orange or yellow or light gray background that is considered a “light background” and I should use white decal paper? If I have a red or blue or darker background, I should use clear decal paper? Or do I have this reversed? Help me before I buy- Bel has a half and half pack of inkjet paper (10 sheets 8x11.5) at a good price, but I don’t want to waste any of it “experimenting” with which paper background is best. Thanks for any advice. Cedarwoodron
Use clear decal paper, print in darker colors. White is mostly used if you need to print something in white, it require a lot more work. Keep in mind printing your own decals on a home ink jet printer won’t result in very dark /opaque decals. Don’t expect commercial quality decals done at home.
Any inkjet/laser/copier printed decal will have the color affected by the color it is placed over. This is due th the fact that the toners used in these devices are designed to render the colors ove a white surface. With that being said, white is the best color to place these decals over. Light grey would be the second best. Once yo start getting into colors the decal will be affected by the base color. Think back to art class in school when you learned how colors mix to create other colors. A blue decal over a yellow model will create a green color etc. Screen printed decals use an Opaque ink for the colors so they woll cover better.
Dan
Something that may be worth considering, instead of trying to print your own decals:
We have a local commercial sign making company that can make decals for us at a very reasonable price of around $10 per sheet, printed on peel-and-stick clear decal sheets, in any color or combination of colors we desire, even including graphics. And because their decals are printed on a commercial-grade laser printer, there’s no risk of fading or smearing of the colors.
All we had to do was take them a sample of what we wanted for a logo or graphic that they could photograph. They touched up and resized the image to whatever we wanted, and added any additional text, at no additional charge.
They have made HO scale decals for us, and I took a new G-scale locomotive so they could measure the available space and they made a set of custom road-name decals for me, printed in gold lettering.
So check with a local commercial sign maker – you’d be surprised to see what some of them are equipped to do.