Ok, so when i got my cockpit specialties gauges, i was a little more than dissapointed when i started my car for the first time.
It was dusk, so all of my dash lights stood out well, and i immediately noticed that the parking brake and check engine light on the tach were so see through that i could see the led shining behind as well as the walls of the light tube for the led.

Then i noticed that the 4 and the 1 on the tach, as well as the redline was completely see through, with no colored backing.

I fixed all of these by taking some white teflon pipe tape and applying it gently to one side of some scotch double sided tape, like the kind to put bows on presents... and then applied this tape to the back side of the gauge, only placing it over the places i mentioned.

Originally when i did this it was a shot in the dark, but it worked quite well. The white maches the rest of the numbers and lines for the revs and it doesnt show through the tint for the idiot lights, as well as the teflon is thin enough that i guestamate that it absorbs less than 5% of the light, and actually helps to diffuse it more evenly.
(no pictures for this part as i did not take before shots)

after fixing the tach, i looked at the speedo when i put my key in and i was appalled by the oil, battery, eml, and traction control.
The tractin controll is not pictured in the before shots, but it was just a blurry circle with no distinction of an arrow, or an exclamation mark.
this is not a blown out or blurry night image either, look at the rest of the gauge and the flashers button, then look at the symbols i complained about.



so I set out to try and fix this.
At first i put scotch tape (clear) to the back of the stock gauge over the lights i wanted to fix, and painstakingly for 2 hours tried to hand trace them by hand with a pen*
*(normal ink worked better than graphite, or sharpie @ blocking light on a quick pre-doing-this test)

but when you mess up once doing this, you have to start over, and the tip of my pen was not pointy enough to make nice clean corners, so i looked for another method, one that would apply ink precisely, and i realized, A PRINTER!

To do this you are going to need a scanner, scotch tape, patience and some self control.
put your stock gauge face on your scanner with the back side to be scanned.
you will need an ipod touch and the flashlight app (or similar pure white, uniform light source) to place on the back of your gauge over the lights you want to fix, and then scan your gauge. example shown
*if you dont use the ipod, or similar light source, the scanner light is the only light used to go through the tint, and it gets filtered, reflected, and filtered before it is read by the scanner, this illuminates it well enough that the stencil is clear instead of grey where you want the light to come through as shown


print the scan, and place tape on a new sheet of paper in the eact same location as the affected areas were on the printed sheet (shown above)
place paper in printer, in the correct orientation (usually tape side down, and remember, first in, first out) and re-print.
This should print a stencil for the light onto the tape nicely.*

* DO NOT TOUCH TAPE, THE INK DOES NOT ABSORB AND WILL SMEAR!!!

lift the tape off the paper carefully (i left extra on that could be smeared and wouldnt matter, and then trimmed it off)

now with patience, place the tape onto the back of the new gauge, in the exact location. This will take some patience, and a backlight, and caution not to touch any printed tape where light will come through.

when your done, install, and the results are much better !
its not 100% as the closeup shows, but i think its much better than it was.