Global Scale Modeller

I have heard this term on reviews but in trying to research it on-line I don't get a clear description of what In Register means. Something do with the printing of the decals but not sure how one determines what is in or out of register.

Hi Marzoo

I think it simply means are the colours right? A common one is RAF wing roundels, some kit companies get the reds and blues for the WW2 markings wrong.

My take on it is a bit different. I class 'out of register' as being miss aligned. Roundels being eccentric rather than concentric. Or stars and bars where the star is out of place, or colours overlapping. You get what I mean, it just doesn't look right, lol!

I may be mistaken of course!

chief5437 wrote:My take on it is a bit different. I class 'out of register' as being miss aligned. Roundels being eccentric rather than concentric. Or stars and bars where the star is out of place, or colours overlapping. You get what I mean, it just doesn't look right, lol!

I may be mistaken of course!

That's what I understood it too be and of course colors being off is no good either.

digger303 wrote:

chief5437 wrote:My take on it is a bit different. I class 'out of register' as being miss aligned. Roundels being eccentric rather than concentric. Or stars and bars where the star is out of place, or colours overlapping. You get what I mean, it just doesn't look right, lol!

I may be mistaken of course!

That's what I understood it too be and of course colors being off is no good either.

"It takes a big man to admit when he's wrong - I am not a big man" - quote from the movie 'Fletch'

After being so rudely contradicted by my peers I had a quick look on the web to see if there was any more info out there that might help. I pulled this off a site where a Trumpy Douglas SBD was being reviewed. Here's the section on the decals.

"Somewhere in everyone's life there is a moment that they wished had never happened, a total regret and embarrassment. For the Trumpeter Dauntless it is the decals. While their quality is very nice including register and carrier film, the content is quite literally trash. They should have shipped the things with no decals at all in my opinion.

A single sheet of marking decals is joined by a single smaller sheet of stencils. One might be able to salvage a few items off of the latter sheet, and perhaps there are a couple of items on the main sheet that pass, but someone doing the art for the main sheet was sitting too close to the halogen bulbs.

The general color of the sheet is off historically speaking (especially the shade of red on the national insignias), and one would have a tough time correcting the national insignias horrid geometric errors. This reviewer highly recommends seeking aftermarket replacements."

The reviewer clearly states that register is different to colour and shape so Digger and Chief are exactly right. I hope that clears up the issue for you mate.

Miss register is a printing term - look under any colour pic in a magazine or newspaper with a magnifying glass and you will normally see one of the 4 colours (yellow/red/blue or back) that slightly overlaps the image.

The term has nothing to do with quality although the effect does have a major affect on the brightness and sharpness of the image - perfect register in printing is almost impossible given the organic nature of paper and the actual printing process.

To clearly illustrate the problem I made two images in photoshop. One that is ok and one is out of register.


In register:


Out of register:

Thanks for all your inputs. I have a better understanding

As stated it is a printing term to describe when consecutively printed colours do not line up. It is not related to the colour itself being wrong. See the stars below. Say the red was printed first and then the outline, something went wrong and the second pass wasn't lined up correctly. Yuck!

Out of register decals?

See any Airfix decal sheet prior to Hornby ownership!

Hi guys i am a printer by trade and mis register does mean when colours are mis aligned and don't match up to a key line or another colour.

FYI i print wine bottle labels so not my fault for shoddy printed decals. Lol