Quote Originally Posted by AJBryant View Post
Man, that really drives home the issue with tartan design, doesn't it?

How will you ever know exactly what you're going to get?

I've been toying with designing my own tartan for a while, and I, too, have found it to look nice and sedate in one format, but loud (albeit not quite MacLeod! ) in another.
One of the the ways you can get an idea of the colour balance is to ask for some samples of existing tartans from the weaver, it's a very good way to get a rough idea of how it might look, of course it's not foolproof but it can help.