Why doesn’t a different substrate affect the color on the color card?

In GMG ColorCard, you might switch the simulation substrate from White Board to Brown Board and print the color card again. You might be puzzled that the paper tint of the color card has changed drastically from white to brown, but the simulated color has not changed a bit. Why is that so?

It is not the intention of GMG ColorCard to predict how the color might change if the same ink mixture is printed on a different substrate type. (This is also technically not possible as the opacity of an ink has a major impact on how the substrate type will influence the color.) GMG ColorCard uses the target value from the CXF file that actually defines how the ink should be printed on the production stock. GMG ColorCard uses the substrate type to define the paper tint simulation, noise, and dot gain.

Same color printed on two different substrates.

The target color (i.e. customer expectation) for ink P2665 is still the same on the brown cardboard. Therefore, the color simulated by GMG ColorCard also stays the same. However, the visual impression has slightly changed due to the noisy cardboard structure and the different contrast of the violet with the brown paper tint.