So I've had my VSi for about 9 months now and it still bothers me that the red looks more washed out/orange than my SP. Both rip/print through Flexi (Cloud) using custom profiles. Pretty much all the stock swatch colors in Flexi print identical but the red. I've tried all the little tricks that Flexi recommends to tweak colors but no matter what I do I am still dealing with a "washed out" red. At this point it leads me to believe the machine just isn't capable of printing a nice deep and bright red (at least using the Flexi red). A lot of you may say "just choose a red that looks good on a different color pallet" but this isn't an option as we have thousands of files that use the stock Flexi red. Anyone have any input on why this is?
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Can VSi not print "good" red?
- Thread starter IsItFasst
- Start date
when you say you are using custom profiles, i assume you mean downloaded profiles.
you need to get an xrite i1 pro and build your own
flexi has s great tool built in, just for this, and you can buy a i1 pro on ebay possibly for just a couple hundred dollars, on ebay.
what you have to understand, a downloaded profile ONLY DOES HALF THE JOB, for you.
it compensates for the inique characteristics of a certain type of material you can print on (there are hundreds, if not thousands, all different). this is a good start,but no one can compensate for the unique characteristics of your unique machine, except you
i found this frustrating in the beginning, as does everyone. there are many threads dealing with just this issue.
once you run through the process, build a custom profile, compensating for the charactaristics of your machine, it will be a world of difference.
you can also consider paying someone like colorcrest to build profiles for you.
this will be much quicker, since they do it all the time.
you need to get an xrite i1 pro and build your own
flexi has s great tool built in, just for this, and you can buy a i1 pro on ebay possibly for just a couple hundred dollars, on ebay.
what you have to understand, a downloaded profile ONLY DOES HALF THE JOB, for you.
it compensates for the inique characteristics of a certain type of material you can print on (there are hundreds, if not thousands, all different). this is a good start,but no one can compensate for the unique characteristics of your unique machine, except you
i found this frustrating in the beginning, as does everyone. there are many threads dealing with just this issue.
once you run through the process, build a custom profile, compensating for the charactaristics of your machine, it will be a world of difference.
you can also consider paying someone like colorcrest to build profiles for you.
this will be much quicker, since they do it all the time.
as you can see, your problem is not unique
https://signs101.com/threads/mimaki-ucjv300-160-problem-printing-red.160830/page-3#post-1501758
https://signs101.com/threads/mimaki-ucjv300-160-problem-printing-red.160830/page-3#post-1501758
balstestrat
Problem Solver
If you have thousands of files with the same red, can you not add that colour on Flexis Replacement list and change it to what ever values you want?
When I stated "custom profiles" I meant that. Both machines are profiled using an i1 pro. I've been printing with Flexi/Roland for 10+ years so I understand the need for something more than a canned profile. Just the VSi doesn't print the deep red that my SP does even after doing all these different tweaks recommended in Flexi to try and get it better.
Curious to know about this...though I don't think it would work in my case as I still need my Flexi red to print the same when using my SP. Unless I am misunderstanding how this works.
balstestrat
Problem Solver
Last edited:
Jim Hancock
Old School Technician
When you did your single color ink limits, are the magenta and yellow limits reduced at all? If so, you might try to increase them to give you more of those colors to create your reds. Make a new profile with those inks having a higher ink limit and see if that helps.
I certainly appreciate the input but those are actually the videos I was referring to when I stated I tried the recommended tweaks. For example: when I print the color chart through Flexi that has all the similar colors around the original color for you to pick the one you want, none look any better than the original. It's like the machine/ink itself is maxed out on how deep the red can be.
balstestrat
Problem Solver
Aha I see. So not really anything to do with Flexi but a profile/printer issue rather.
I don't recall them being off. It's been a while since I did the profile but I do remember messing with those setting but if I remember correctly it seemed that no matter how far off I adjusted things the color remain the same. It was like the default profile was taking over even if I hard core played with the color adjustment in the rip and print area.
Jim Hancock
Old School Technician
It's not about the single ink limits being "off", it's what are they at now. If they are less than 100, you may want to increase them and reprofile. Those values control how much of that color is available for the profile and if they are too low, you will be restricting the ink available when you profile and thus reducing your color gamut. What are they on the profile you are using? They must be changed before you create the total ink limits and the icc profile. Changing them after the fact will have very little impact, except if you reduce them a great deal, your prints will get lighter. Remember, in profiling, each step builds upon the previous step.
I agree with Jim. When I was doing a lot of profiles in Flexi for Roland printers, I found myself always increasing magenta by 5 or 10% more than what I would initially think it would be. This gave me good reds out of any Roland printer with Flexi. And as Jim said, if you bump those up, you'll need to step through the rest of the profile process after you make the change.
Good Luck
Good Luck
As mentioned, it's been a while since I did this but I recall upping the magenta but didn't seem do anything I could see. Maybe I need to try and update my profile. All I know is my SP produced deeper reds even when using a canned profiles than what this custom profile does on my VSi. I tried various canned profiles as a starting point when I got this machine but none were anywhere close to the canned profiles I used on my SP before finally custom profiling it. Sounds like I got a new project to tinker with if I can find the time.
Jim Hancock
Old School Technician
If you upped the magenta on an existing profile, you won't see much change, if any. You need to make a new profile from scratch with the higher ink limit.
Interesting as that may have been my problem before when trying to up my limits AFTER I had created the profile. Sure would be nice if I could up my limit on magenta in my existing profile but I suppose that would throw off all my colors if I didn't re-profile. Though you'd think the software could determine the reds need more magenta when profiling...but I guess it can't do everything. Now just need to find a day to start this process all over again (still skeptical).
Jim Hancock
Old School Technician
The software can only work with the amount of ink you have it limited to. Increase the ink limit and you give the software more ink to work with when creating the icc profile. Now, lets say your magenta was restricted to 80 percent. You have a red calling for 90 percent magenta. It will use 90 percent of the 80 percent magenta available, and this is coded into the mathematics in the icc table. Now increase the magenta to 100 percent after the icc has been created. The math is still only calling for 90 percent of the 80 percent. It cannot use the additional 20 percent because of the math. Now, redo the icc with the 100 percent magenta and the math in the icc table has changed and the 90 percent value is calling for 90 percent of 100 percent magenta. This might be a bit of an analogy, but conceptionally that's why increasing the individual ink limit after creating the icc profile has very little effect. Hope this reduces your skepticism...
If some of the color gurus on here can explain it better, please chime in. Profiling knowledge and understanding is a constant learning exercise, even after doing profiling for some 20 years. If my explanation isn't fairly accurate, I welcome a learned observation to add to my knowledge.
If some of the color gurus on here can explain it better, please chime in. Profiling knowledge and understanding is a constant learning exercise, even after doing profiling for some 20 years. If my explanation isn't fairly accurate, I welcome a learned observation to add to my knowledge.
Makes total sense to me. I just assumed when upping the ink on a current profile it would do just that, and actually up the ink above what the profile was set at. I trust what you are saying and I'm not skeptical on that. I'm just skeptical because I found all kinds of canned profiles that would produce awesome reds on my SP but couldn't find a single one for my VSi when I first go the machine. And even with the custom profile, it still has more of that washed out orange tint to it; the same as the generic profiles had. Most people wouldn't notice the difference between my two printers but I do which is why I'm still concerned about it 9 months later. Will create a new profile and report back here once completed.
Jim Hancock
Old School Technician
That's the downside of canned profiles. You don't know who created the profile (and every manufacture is using a different person or service), what software and device they used, how much experience they have and what settings they decided on in the sections that require visual judgement instead of a measured setting. And, as stated before, the canned profiles do not take your printers characteristics in mind. As I said before, learning color profiling is an ongoing exercise.