Advice Please ! - HP315 - Consistency Across 5 machines - Same Media - Same images

[J4cko]

Hi Guys
Hope you can give a little advice please.
We should know more about printing that we do, but are pretty one dimensional, printing just canvas, across 5 Latex 315 machines
And have done for years

Our issue is that we really struggle to get consistent colours across the 5 machines. In fact maybe not even close !
We sort of get away with it by adjusting master images, and using certain printers for certain jobs, but to say the least, this is tiresome

Allowing for head degradation, as with all thermal head printers, we still seem to see the same pattern across the machines.
This is most noticeable when printing weak neutral colours like beige, and certain greys

Printer 4, seems as good as it gets, when printing our neutrals, and is pretty consistent to produce decent neutral beige colours

However ...
Printer 2 leans a little towards a brownish Tint on light neutrals
Printer 3 leans towards a slightly pink tint on light neutrals
Printer 5 leans towards green a little tint on the light neutrals

We use exactly the same media across all 5 machines, and to be honest, i know nothing about profiling

My main technical colleague and right hand man, passed away 18 month ago, and i have been winging my way through printing since then.
Up till last year, i had never changed a head and had to youtube how to swap out a cartridge, as it had been years since i touched any large forma machines

I'm not sure how profiles are set up.
We use Onyx as a RIP

I'd love some advice on what to do , to try and get consistency ,or closer to it , across my 5 HP Latex 315's

Our media wont be changing any time soon, so it will be the same media used on each Printer

I've lost count of the number of head cleans, test prints, nozzle checks i have done, but the pattern of colour shifts seems to live on, regardless.
I am not seeing i dont see general colour improvements when i change heads, but irrespective of this, i still see different machines leaning towards different tints, when printing the same image on the same canvas media

Do i need to profile this media individually to each machine ?
Apologies for any naieve questions, but all the printing and technical part of the business , was with my friend who passed away

Just keen to see what options i have, to get better consistency across these 5 machines, and only using the same media on all of them.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions, pointers, or words of wisdom !

Look forward to hearing from some of you guys who know a lot more than myself

 

[balstestrat]

You can't match multiple L315 easily. You need to get a handheld spectro and do profiling and linearization onto every printer every so often.

Other than that, best you can do is install the same profile to every printer and run color calibration every week or so. But it will not fix printhead problems, you have to be able to detect those on your own.

For example the single LM-LC printhead when it malfunctions will make color shifts and if you don't understand it has happened you are chasing ghosts for a week.

 

[ColorCrest]

Thanks in advance for any suggestions, pointers, or words of wisdom !

A few things you should be aware of…

1) The particular machines you’re working with are not exactly famous for their color stability.

2) A particular color management workflow term is referred to as “cross rendering” (sometimes called cross media rendering.) Have printer A match printer B. This is common among shops using inkjet printers as proofing devices to match printing presses. The inkjet printer will transmogrify colors using the ICC press profile along with its own ICC profile as well. Depending upon your locale, you may have an expert in your area available to help with such and they might come the printing or photography fields.

3) A first and basic step is print a single evaluation file (see your Onyx folder) from each of your machines using both the options of “all color management off” and then “on” to see and learn how they are behaving. Date and keep the prints for reference over time. In many shops this is daily routine because any “drift” will become visibly noticeable in short order.

4) Consider the quality and color of light in the area where you will print and / or judge color, especially as it applies to working with neutral grays.

5) Since you’re a production house, you will want the color management hardware, software, and learned knowledge to use on a regular basis to stay within quality tolerance. Use the following for optimal canvas printing…

Model #: EO3PLPUB
i1Publish Pro 3 Plus which will make use of its wide aperture and polarized option (especially useful for canvas texture)

along with (fortunately back into production and apparently available)…

Model #: eois2xl
i1iSis 2 XL A3/Tabloid automated chart reader

6) Although you will want the best tools, you will most definatlly need the knowledge and skill of color correction and color management workflow in order to save time, expense, and frustration. Before the advant of modern ICC profiles and tools, color was controlled manually and may be still.

Good luck!

 

[P Wagner]

Designate one of the printers as the reference printer (target).

1) Reference printer: through the EWS/ Embedded Web Server (browser-based) interface, export the media preset for the media being used (OMS file) and save it to a PC on the network.
2) Through each printer's EWS, import the OMS into each of the other four printers.
3) Load the media onto each of the other printers, and run a Color Calibration (CLC) using the on-board procedure on each device (takes about 15 minutes).

Other issues - check for expired inks, in particular the light cyan and light magenta as well as yellow inks. These inks are most used in printing near neutrals, and if any of them are significantly expired, neutral gray tones could cause drift towards warm (pink) or or cool (green).

 

[cornholio]

Designate one of the printers as the reference printer (target).

1) Reference printer: through the EWS/ Embedded Web Server (browser-based) interface, export the media preset for the media being used (OMS file) and save it to a PC on the network.
2) Through each printer's EWS, import the OMS into each of the other four printers.
3) Load the media onto each of the other printers, and run a Color Calibration (CLC) using the on-board procedure on each device (takes about 15 minutes).

Other issues - check for expired inks, in particular the light cyan and light magenta as well as yellow inks. These inks are most used in printing near neutrals, and if any of them are significantly expired, neutral gray tones could cause drift towards warm (pink) or or cool (green).

Hi
While the way you describe the CLC workflow is correct, I think we need to be aware, that the 315 doesn't have a spectro and uses the line sensor as measuring device.
This isn't a very precise way to measure densities.
At least I would do a line sensor cleaning first and then a line sensor calibration with the same HP defined material on all printers.
Keep the line sensor clean at all times when you do a CLC.

 

[victor bogdanov]

Canon Colorado is very color consistent, one might come close to productivity of the printers you have now. I can reprint wallpaper panels month later and its a perfect match.

Epson R5070 also color consistent, there is a wrap shop by me that will print half a trailer on one R5070 and half on another R5070 and the halves match up prefect, printers not calibrated to match each other, matching right from the factory

 

[J4cko]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for all of your replies

You can't match multiple L315 easily. You need to get a handheld spectro and do profiling and linearization onto every printer every so often.

Other than that, best you can do is install the same profile to every printer and run color calibration every week or so. But it will not fix printhead problems, you have to be able to detect those on your own.

For example the single LM-LC printhead when it malfunctions will make color shifts and if you don't understand it has happened you are chasing ghosts for a week.

Hi Balstestrat,
Thanks for the info, much appreciated.
I have a very old EFI ES-1000 hand held profiler
I have no idea if drivers / software are still available for this ?
My colleague used to use it , way back in the day when we sold print media
I personally have never touched it, and the case was covered in layers of dust when i discovered it at the weekend

Could you expand a little on malfunctions with the LM-LC print head ? please
Apart from drastic colour shifts, or broken bars in the test plot,
any suggesttion on other ways to determine problems with this LM-LC head ?
This is nearly always one of the 1st i replace , if colour has moved, and the head has high throughput

But interested in any tests you can do on this or other heads, apart from the Plot test, and inspecting the result to look for broken lines or gaps

Any advice massively appreciated

thank you
Jack

 

[balstestrat]

Don't get too into the "LM-LC", it was only an example. You need proper training on-site from someone who knows the machines and how things work.

I always suggest adding spitbars on the side. It will quickly help discover what channel is malfunctioning.

 

[PrintColorGal]

Good morning!

I am trying to do the same using Onyx 22 and Caldera. We have DGI, DGI Grands, Panthera S4, and Epson 10070. I have an i1 Pro and and EFI ES3000. Any advice on the best way to achieve this? I've gotten the DGI and Pantheras to match between Caldera and Onyx, but I am having to recreate them due to an ink conversion. We do dye sublimination printing with heat transfer and we do it on pretty much any type of fabric.

Also, we are in a very high humidity environment, even with dehumidifiers running. In the summer, I have to make sure out ink saturation is high enough to get the vivid color but low enough where we aren't dealing with wet ink when we are rolling up our prints.

I have roughly 40 printers I am going to need to have color consistency on.

I have some training on color management and the RIP software, however it's been here and there and I don't have time to look at color daily. Also, I saw where ColorCrest recommended doing the Onyx Evaluation print with and without color management for a daily color check, I am trying to figure out what the best color check to do on a daily basis that will work for all of our printers.

Thank you!

 

[J4cko]

ive bought a 2nd hand i1pro 2 and an i1io table, so i need to start learning about colour, which is something i know very little about. But i couldnt bear the throught of manually scanning those patches, so invedted in the semi automated tool. Anyone had any experience with the i1io robotic arm table ?

 

[J4cko]

Don't get too into the "LM-LC", it was only an example. You need proper training on-site from someone who knows the machines and how things work.

I always suggest adding spitbars on the side. It will quickly help discover what channel is malfunctioning.

Pardon my ignorance ! i presume those are those coloured bars that i sometimes see either side of proofs ( i know i should know more , as ive been involved 15+ years, but largely not hands on ) . How do i get these spit bars on prints if needed ? ( i use Onyx ) . Appreciate the answer, even if obvious. thank you

 

[balstestrat]

Pardon my ignorance ! i presume those are those coloured bars that i sometimes see either side of proofs ( i know i should know more , as ive been involved 15+ years, but largely not hands on ) . How do i get these spit bars on prints if needed ? ( i use Onyx ) . Appreciate the answer, even if obvious. thank you

"Gutter" in placement.

 

[wendy kong]