This is the reality that I have experienced, and that many others here who have purchased and designed chips from Tina have experienced.Regarding colors, I believe Tina prints whatever you give her. I don’t think more recent colors looking better is because she is getting better at it… I think we (all of PCF) have adapted and have been better at designing mixes of CMYK that she is able to print.
I definitely have a few “duds” regarding color choices that came out really crappy, and I won’t use that mix again. Conversely, I also have a bunch of printed samples with known CMYK values that I keep repeating because I know they will print consistently well.
I already said it once in a previous post. I don't think anyone here is questioning or doubting what your experience was. Only trying to state that it is not the majority experience."strong point" has not been my experience. Like you said, maybe my 2 separate orders previous to the newer molds (NGK, scrown, web) are the exception (see below).
I agree with this. Colors poppin everywhere. Color saturation has been very good for every chip and sample I've received (see below).
This I am sure is (or was) not a true statement. I spent the better part of 24 hours going back and forth with Tina about certain colors that I had submitted that they entirely refused to print. She sent me alternative color options based on other chips they had made. I was shocked that I not only couldn't get them to agree to print the chip color as submitted, but that they also wouldn't provide a PMS, CMYK, RGB, or any color chart that they would agree to print from. This was during my first large order.
Now, hopefully your statement is true at this point in time. For my current order I submitted my colors (not based on any current Tina, CPC, GPI chip colors for the most part), and she came back with what I think is a great color representation of what I submitted. The colors match much more closely to what I submitted this time.
So... that's where my thought that Tina colors are "improving" comes from. Once again, I am but a small fish in a big sea. I've ordered and received about 4000 Tina chips up to this point, so it's definitely a smaller sample size.
Not sure what you are trying to accomplish by dragging this out? You have given a fair warning to those who have no experience with Tina. Other's of us have given an alternate viewpoint. At this point, you're just arguing for argument's sake. It's not like we're ordering $8 a chip Tigers here. We all understand that these are lower, entry level or budget level chips. Anyone buying these should set their expectations accordingly. And having said all that, I still feel that these chips are a tremendous value for what they cost!