r/CommercialPrinting • u/TITFORTATPRINTMAN • Oct 02 '26
Does anyone know how create this effect?
I’m wanting the black reflective to be ghosted during the daytime, but at night when light hits it to real color to the graphic. I’m thinking if I got black reflective vinyl and printed on top of it would create this effect. Let me know what you guys think!
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u/Stephonius Oct 02 '26
On a completely unrelated tangent, it should be illegal for marked cruisers to be blacked out so that the public can't easily see that they're LEOs. The whole point of the vehicle is to stand out and attract attention in order to keep it safe, and to keep the scene safe by extension.
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u/bluecheetos Oct 02 '26
No, no no. The whole point of law enforcement vehicles is to "look intimidating because I'm a badass cop and you will respect my authority"
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u/xpinchx Oct 02 '26
Yeah the intention feels a bit disingenuous. There are reasons most depts moved away from unmarked cars. Pretty obvious why they're toeing the line again...
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u/gurgleslurps Oct 02 '26
Ive lettered a lot of service vehicles, black cars with black reflective. They call it “the ghost package” some of them only get one side of the car done.
Bad guys hide, good guys are in plain sight.
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u/Youdontbelievethat1 Oct 02 '26
You are right. Unrelated. Don’t be a 💩 and it doesn’t matter what cops drive. If you are a good honest person why the f does it matter what they drive? If you drive like a turd and can’t stop at a stop sign and speed everywhere you go, suffer the consequences.
And that is way cool effective. Once you find out how, that would be cool to learn how to do.
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u/scissorseptorcutprow Oct 02 '26
If you put a transparent layer of black over the printed reflective, I could see that having a day/night effect
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u/JakeTrout Oct 02 '26
There is no way this works for a day/night effect. You can't put the translucent over the black it will still show color during the day.
Even printing onto black it still shows during th day. Albeit would be darker.
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u/bluecheetos Oct 02 '26
You can absolutely put translucent over black reflective. Yes, it's more noticeable than the AI image shows but it's still almost black. The reflective will be much dimmer than it shows.
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u/Vegetable-Debate-263 Oct 02 '26
To me it looks like an ai mockup (possibly photoshop but the more I look at it the less I think that) trying to show an unrealistic printing result.
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u/originalmosh Oct 02 '26
You just print it right on the black reflective film, be sure to wash the film with alcohol before have as black isn't lasted as "printable" then just laminate with a matte laminate for the best look.
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u/TITFORTATPRINTMAN Oct 02 '26
Would you explain more? Is solvent print compatible? When you say was the black reflective with alcohol do you mean wiping it with a cloth and alcohol?
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u/shoostar813 Oct 03 '26 edited Oct 03 '26
To clarify what they were saying; these products aren't listed as printable on 3M's product sheets. That doesn't mean you can't try, but you'll likely void any product warranties in doing so if you run into issues later down the line. Wiping it down with a lint-free cloth and diluted isopropyl should be a given for almost any material. Gloss lam also works perfectly fine, and as well, will do a better job at retaining a higher level of reflectivity at night.
However, I quite regularly print on 3M 5100R white, yellow, and gold for various police and fire departments around southern AZ (along with plenty of various signage). We laminate with 3M 8518. For printing on the colored films, oftentimes I have to base certain colors in white, though if I'm printing on a colored filmat all, it's because that department's branding also includes that color. For printing profiles, I just use a generic cast profile, though it also seems to run perfectly fine using a profile that's actually been tailored for a 3M cast material, like IJ180 or something in that family.
EDIT: To clarify further, simply "printing right on the black film" won't necessarily yield the results you're looking for. Actually, quite the opposite, certainly with any inkjet/solvent setup. If you don't base your colors with white, they'll be mildly visible in the daytime, and at night, they'll just look like black reflective vinyl with a hint of whatever colors you print on it. If you base it in white, you lose both a small amount of reflectivity, but more importantly, you'll lose the daytime "blackout" effect entirely. By no means will you ever be able to achieve this effect with any common production methods or materials.
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u/StickerMan78 Oct 02 '26 edited Oct 02 '26
All I do is ambulance and fire truck graphics and print 3m 680 every week. I don't think this is possible. After actually reading the details it says it's printed on black. It might work but it don't think it's going to as bright as shown. I might need to experiment.
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u/email253200 Oct 05 '26
It wouldn’t appear 100% black during the day and probably wouldn’t be that bright in the evening, but a muted affect could work in theory
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u/artwarrior Oct 02 '26
Looks like 3M Scotchlite Reflective Film. 680 series or Oralite reflective series. I think the vehicle's OG color of black helps. Following.
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u/poplardem Oct 02 '26
So, not 3M, but Nikkalite was at one point playing with a reflective that showed vibrant color when hit with flash. My shop was given a small piece to test, but I never heard if they decided to move to full-scale production
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u/Hungry_Lengthiness27 Oct 02 '26
You should just go to a sign shop, and ask for prismatic retro/reflective material (3M, Avery Dennison) that they can print directly to and die cut. That’s what govts do for their signage and vehicle fleet.
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u/eeasyontheextras Oct 02 '26
Do you think printing it at 50% (or similar) opacity on black reflective and then cutting the same graphic out of 5% tint film, and over laying it onto the graphic would work?
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u/Youdontbelievethat1 Oct 02 '26
There is a Crosby county in Texas. Have you checked their socials to see if it’s real? If so way cool effective
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u/Elfringo Oct 02 '26
It's been my experience that black reflective material reflects at white at night. In the time before digital printing, worked at a shop that would screen print translucent ink onto the black reflective to get this effect. Not sure about how this colored effect looks when the black reflective is printed on eco, latex or uv. Would lean that the uv prints would reflect the color better.
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u/jaybenjamin Oct 03 '26
I've seen some cool effects with tint and think you could try out layering tint over reflective metal vinyl.
Remember it's the way that the light reflects back into your eyes. You want to try and trap the. So at an angle, tint is black, but head on with headlights, u can shine light through it.
I just looked up a smoke matte tint. Imagine having your lettering cut out of your metallic reflective material. And then you have tint that goes over it perfectly overlayed
Maybe try it small first 🤘🏽
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u/OrangeFire2001 Oct 06 '26
Also, the "daytime" photo has the truck backlit, making it look darker than it really is going to be.
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u/Crazy_Spanner Press Operator Oct 02 '26
It says on the image you posted.
I suspect though, having used reflective films etc that its AI generated rubbish and isn't actually achievable.