• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

Can My ROCKHOPPER Print RED???

O

onlyjames

The World Is Never Enough
Its embarassing when I hold up my red print next to red vinyl. I expect that I can not print something as bold, but my reds are not even worthy of showing to a customer......has anyone had this problem...possible solutions..profiles?

Im running OEM inks, Postershop 7, Orical 3651 ect ect. Ive tried several profiles, all similar results.

Thanks!
 
R

randya

New Member
There is no RED ink in your printer, any reds from your printer is usually a combination of magenta and yellow, sometimes with black added and sometimes a bit of cyan.

http://www.mutoh.com/kb/entry/116/

Some colors are just outside the color gamut of the inkset.
While you are printing with CMYK, screen printers, painters,vinyl manufactureres and others have access to colors that blended with a much more varied pigment and dye set that you have in your printer, i.e. metallics and a variety of colors available for cut vinyl.

It is also possible that your Input Profiles and Color Space are not optimized. (I normally design in Adobe in RGB, save out as a tiff with embedded profile and have Onyx set to use embedded profile).

It is also possible that your rendering intents are not optimized either.


The key to getting good consistant color is Color Management. There are companies and individuals who specialize in Color Management Training.
I use Perceptual for RGB images and SWOP II for Vectors
 
C

c-leb

New Member
I used a Rockhopper (the 4 color 8 head version) for 4 years with Onyx rip and our company has only two primary colors one of which is PMS 186 red. NEVER got a red that I was totally happy with. I may sound like a lamen to signmakers that are successful with it but I tried hundreds of media sets, color builds, swatch matching, media's, etc... with varying results and only close with no cigar. The only time I felt I was getting close was using high gloss vinyl or banner, and that only because the ink takes on the glossy look of the media. But it was still like polishing a turd.

Although in Mutohs defense the printer did a great job of full color prints like images, graphics, and decals with no solid red builds in the print. Definently had strengths but red was not one of them. Try contacting Mutoh directly, or see if anyone who has the same printer and rip can suggest or send you media sets that work for them.

Good luck, hate to sound like a downer but we've recently decided to send ours to the scrapyard after a fire (thanks Signs 101 for the suggestions)... and yes the fire was accidental, and I'll leave that story for Vutek to tell.
 
longbeachmichael

longbeachmichael

New Member
u can try all the different combinations of media and profiles you want, but in the end there is no way to get a bright red from CMYK. something close pms 186 is probably all you can hope for.
 
O

onlyjames

The World Is Never Enough
C-leb....I just printed a BEAUTIFUL image...its amazing how good it looks, but yes, the red Sucks! and it sounds like my best bet would be to do a little testing, get the best red possible and stick with it.

Any chance that someone with another rockhopper could send me some red samples from their printer? I at least want to know that Im getting the best from my printer. I will pay for shipping/materials....

Thanks everyone, for the bad news :) ha ha
 
Graphicdetailsinc

Graphicdetailsinc

New Member
i know this isnt the best solution, but if you are using wasatch or any rip where you can do a double pass print, you can get great vibrant colors, the only issue is you are oversaturating the vinyl.
 
R

randya

New Member
Just because there are limitations, it does not mean you cant get good reds.

It just means that you are not going to be able to perfectly match Pantone or CMS colors which are specially designed (and some BTW are designed specifically to be outside the color gamut of cmyk).

The key is good color management and calibration.
It is sometimes impossible to properly color manage files brought in by customers that have no defined color space.

The quickest way is to print out the Pantone charts and see which color is closest to the color you are aiming for.
 
O

onlyjames

The World Is Never Enough
Yeah, doesnt look like I have the feature. Im going to print out the PMS charts and use that as my master color list. When customers come in I can let them see the exact color that they are getting .......no surprizes! or being stressed before a customer comes in....waiting for them to say "why do the colors look like that??" ha ha
 
Graphics2u

Graphics2u

New Member
Pantone 187C prints pretty decent for me. And you can always bump up the magenta and yellow values in your RIP. If you are printing just Reds in vectors I have used a CMYK mix and send it without color correction. That'll give you a nice red but it can mess up other colors in your file.
 
gabagoo

gabagoo

New Member
I had to print red today on my Mimaki and I went through all my charts and just could not match closely to the decals we did for this customer via screenprinting 3 years ago. I then took a look at my colour chart printout using 720 x 1440, and I found one that not only was vibrant and alive but matched dead on to a 185 red. The only issue I will have is that the rest of the decal is black and I have to die cut to the edge; with that amount of ink laid down I may have to wait a week before I dare cut the black inline...lol
 
R

randya

New Member
The Mutoh, Roland and Mimaki eco inks are all the same inks from Epson.
So, they all have the exact same color gamut.

onlyjames has the easiest 'color management' for non-color managers.

Print what you know, use your profile on your media, print out color charts and let the customer choose which color they want from colors that you know you can already print.

Beyond that, get a professional in to train you on color management and profile creation and practice, practice, practice.
 
D

digitalsolutionsok

New Member
A reliable cmyk spotcolor system would be alot more effective than what I just read in this post geeeezzzz.... Do you expect every end user to understand the science of color between input/output and so on so forth. This is just a opinion but its kinda wierd seeing you all post like this and then you look over at the equipment side that starts with a R and they got a easy built in cmyk spot system that works without a headache. Did you say never..... never hit a bright red on glossy white vinyl thats ridiculous.
 
O

onlyjames

The World Is Never Enough
randya said:
The Mutoh, Roland and Mimaki eco inks are all the same inks from Epson.
So, they all have the exact same color gamut.

onlyjames has the easiest 'color management' for non-color managers.

Print what you know, use your profile on your media, print out color charts and let the customer choose which color they want from colors that you know you can already print.

Beyond that, get a professional in to train you on color management and profile creation and practice, practice, practice.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I plan on printing out the PMS charts on Glossy and Matte and let the customers pick away. No surprizes when they pickup their work.....and no returns!! ha ha

Thanks to everyone so far.....and hopefully I will soon have a Valujet! or something better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top