Black and White

[ElJay]

I'm sure this issue has been addressed here before but I'm hoping for some information that I can use to apply to my specific situation:

Roland SC-540
Roland COLORIP ver 2.2

I recieve files in various formats (.jpeg .tif .eps .pdf) with various color settings (RGB, CMYK) and I'm having problems with gray scales. Instead of accurate-looking black and white images, grays tend to have and overall pinkish hue (with some greens and cyans present also). Is there a setting I can change in my RIP that will override the color information in my source files? Do I need to create a special profile for black and whites?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ElJay]

(bump) Anyone?

 

[heyskull]

This question goes round and round on this forum.
Why are my greys not greys?!!!!
It is all about making do. I know it sounds terrible but unless you can switch your profile to printing Black only (and even this doesn't work as blacks are made up of all sorts of colours) you will not succeed.

A CMYK printer uses some if not all the colours to simulate grey.
Sometimes there is too much cyan and yellow in the shade which will give a green tinge.
Sometimes there is too much magenta giving a pink tinge.
I would go through all your profiles until you find something that will do (you will never get it perfect!)
Then even some greys perform differently as you may get a green tinge or a pink tinge.

This problem will constantly rear its ugly head and just when you think you have cracked the problem you will get a grey that doesn't print grey!!!

Hope that helps

SC

 

[ElJay]

Thanks for the advice....I kind of figured as much. Yet another thing I can add to the list of digital printing realities that my bosses and clients won't really understand....lol

 

[J Hill Designs]

if they are black and white images, you can tell your RIP to use only black...might want to play with contrast/saturation or it may be washed, but it wont be green/purple/pink/etc...

 

[ElJay]

More often than not I'll have all kinds of colorful text and whatnot over top of a B&W image...so you can't mess with the B&W without screwing up all the other colors in the artwork. Arrrg!! Don't even get me started on my printer sometimes printing bars instead smooth gradients.....(*sigh*) I love my job!

 

[dasignshop]

We had the same roblem and had to use sign and display instead of prepress us .
This worked on some jobs but not all.