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Color Profiles

cwb143

New Member
I made a profile color looks nice but its a bit grainy. Anyone know
how to fix that? Im using a flatbed printer uv ink. Printing on Styrene.
Using Onyx 10.1 to profile with and the I1 from xrite.

Cwb.
 

eye4clr

New Member
I'd sort in order or importance

1. physical printer problems; head allignments, bidirectional, full clean nozzle firing
2. where you start using K in the ICC. Start "earlier", IOW lower number for more efficient ink usage. Start "later", IOW higher number for smoother, less grainy printing. Early K start for UV would be between 10-40. Late K start for smoother printing would be around 40-60.
3. if you have light inks, make sure they're being used enough to do their job of smoothing out lighter colors to further diminish grainy appearance. If you're doing the transitions manually, I'd say usage around 60-80% would be about as smooth as you could hope for. Personally I go lower to try to keep the light inks out of the Total Ink mix.

Considering you're using Onyx, Stochastic is the obvious choice for your diffusion pattern. FDRP will look a tiny bit better but take longer to RIP and the difference in graininess is very small.
 

cwb143

New Member
"2. where you start using K in the ICC. Start "earlier", IOW lower number for more efficient ink usage. Start "later", IOW higher number for smoother, less grainy printing. Early K start for UV would be between 10-40. Late K start for smoother printing would be around 40-60."

Could you expand on the above ? Where in the profling to I adjust this?
Also the FDRP Enhanced proved to be a better selection for my printer.
Thanks for that!

CWB
 

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eye4clr

New Member
Your screen cap is a control for light ink to dark ink in cyan. This is a control applied before, during, or right after linearization.

Controlling K as I mention in #2 is done within the controls for the ICC its self. It will usually be shared with controls for Total Ink (0-400), GCR, UCR, and maybe black "width".

What you're looking to effect with the K start is when the K ink starts to get used in the lightness scale. As far as I know, most profiling software makes this number relative to the use of cyan. IOW, when does K start to be used relative to the amount of cyan. So if you set your K start to 20, that means once there is 20% cyan use, the K dot will start to be mixed in. I think it's easier to just think of it in terms of when K starts to get used in the lightness scale.

Earlier (lower) values use K dots in lighter colors and start to apply your GCR sooner. Later (higher) values do not use K dots until the colors get darker. Using K in light colors makes for some grainy looking prints because your eye resolves the contrast of the K dot against the light color easily. Lay people will describe this as looking grainy or low rez. Supressing the K dot until the colors are darker helps hide the contrasty dot and depends on your CMY and lc lm if you have them to mix colors from. This makes for a smoother, "higher rez" looking print, especially if you have lc lm.

Hope this helps. When in doubt, go with 45 for a K start for solvent inkjet and you'll be safe.
 

Bly

New Member
Thanks for sharing this info eye4.
Invaluable advice as usual.

Anyone who does their own profiling should bookmark this page.
 
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