Forced into low ink densities on the L360

[dypinc]

With reading dryer module resistant values and entering then into my L25500 I could no longer boot up the printer without getting errors. I was planning on getting the L360 anyway and didn't want to put any more expense into a new drying module on the L25500 or finding it was something else after putting in a new drying module, so I purchased a L360.

Needless to say I not exactly pleased with the limiting of Ink Densities in the substrate setup. The drivers for my Fiery XF rip are not quite ready yet so I have been using a trial of Caldera. What I am finding at this point is that if is going to be hard to get bright saturated color on PVC Banner and vinyl when the ink densities are limited to 120%. With all the other controls such as the latex optimizer setting and heat, along with ink limiting controls in the RIP I should not be forced to only 120% ink density on the printer itself. I am also surprised that Caldera does not let you edit the light ink curves which can be a contributing factor in not being able to achieve high gammit colors. I am going to have to ask Caldera about this. It appears I am being limited by idiot proofing on both the printer and the RIP.

I noticed right off that I can not get good deep reds with the PVC Banner and vinyl setting but when I linearized and profiled canvas I can get good deep reds because the L360 allows more ink density with that substrate setting. I wonder if I am going to have to have to use another substrate setting to achieve high saturated colors on PVC Banner and vinyl. Lots of experimenting coming up it looks like. I will call HP on this one, seems they can easily change this in a firmware update. Especially at 12 and 16 pass limiting you to 120% ink density I think is a bit ridiculous.

I could achieve better saturated colors and much deeper reds with the L25500 and the Firey XF RIP combination. I don't think the Caldera RIP is the problem because on canvas I can achieve good saturated colors and deep reds, although I do find the spot color libraries a bit off in Caldera. I shouldn't have to to read in a new LAB with the spectro just to get the spot colors correct. I found this problem with many RIPs I tested in the past. I guess that is one of the reason the Fiery XF was chosen because it was always right-on when it came to spot colors.

 

[AF]

A quick read of the L360 manual says you can modify the substrate preset, clone it and modify that, or create a new one from scratch. I would create a new one and label it "Banner High Ink" or something informational.

 

[dypinc]

A quick read of the L360 manual says you can modify the substrate preset, clone it and modify that, or create a new one from scratch. I would create a new one and label it "Banner High Ink" or something informational.

You can do all that but for PVC Banner and Vinyl you still can't set the ink density higher than 120% no matter what other settings you use. Like I said the only way I see around that is to use Textile, Backlit or maybe Paper substrate settings for banner or vinyl. I will still have to test all that and see what is possible.

 

[P Wagner]

As you may know, the Latex 360 is a contone (continuous tone) printer, whereas the Latex 260 (as well as almost all other printers in this market segment) are halftone devices.

Contone printers take direct control over various functions, and these typically include dot patterns and ink splits (light/ dark ink transitions). RIPs do not have access to these functions in contone printers as they are handled by the printer directly.

 

[AF]

From the HP literature on the 300 series:

Q What is the difference between halftone and contone printing?
In Halftone printers, the whole color management and workflow settings are controlled by the RIP so a specific media
profile has to be generated for each RIP and media print mode combination.
In Contone printers, most of the color management and workflow settings are done inside the printer as media profiles are
now on board the printer. This means that the “click to print” time is significantly reduced as RIP processing is now
significantly quicker.
Q Is there any disadvantages going from a halftone to contone printing?
The user won’t be able to select full to light color ink separations to tradeoff between image quality and print cost. However
to solve this the user can using only four colors with any number of passes.
Q Can I make any changes on the fly while printing?
Yes. The most popular adjustment you can make while printing is to change the curing temperature and it will take
immediate effect while printing the current print job. There is an option to save the change and these settings will be
automatically saved to the profile for subsequent jobs. In this menu you can also make changes to advance factor, interpass
delay offset and vacuum printing, however these are only recommend for experienced users.

The use of the word "contone" is loosely used here, but regardless this could represent a step backwards if the OP cannot control his printer and get usable output on a simple banner. There should be a way to override the internal stuff because HP says there are many materials that still require an external profile/rip.

I would load as a different material and get it done.

 

[dypinc]

Trying to idiot proof it like this is total BS.

The problem with loading as backlit banner to be able to get to a minimum ink density of 130 is that the least amount of passes that you are able to select is 12. So I take it that speed and high gammit output is not possible with this machine.

HP and I are going to have a discussion about this on Monday. There is absolutely now reason to limit it like this. They damn well better make some changes here or they are going to get way more bad publicity they want.

 

[AF]

Are you certain there is no way to disable the "nanny" mode and use the rip to set the parameters?

in Caldera you would load the EasyMedia module to create or modify media profiles.

You could get a trial of Colorgate (Windows only), it has a fully certified HP Latex 300 series driver and the best internal profiling engine I have seen.

 

[dypinc]

What I am see with caldera is that I can't set the quality to anything other than what is allowed by the same substraite setings on the printer.

i tried Colorgate with the L25500, I liked most of its features but the color was not as accurate as the Fiery XF rip, especially spot colors.

I this his point I can't find any information on any rips that can override the setting on the printer.

 

[Hotspur]

Ink Limit

Hi

Simple answer is you cannot avoid the 120% ink limit in the media families discussed - it is part of the software and the only way around it is to trick it by telling it you are using a different media family type that has a higher ink level allowed.

The reason for this is that for the profiling system to work reliably in vastly different markets with different skill and education levels, temperature and humidity levels, then tough decisions have to be made where to set these limits so that good results can be had by everyone.

For me, in my market, I agree its too "safe" at 120% and they have been too conservative - in theory it should only take a FW update to change it.

On many substrates I find that at 120% all is well and I could have squeezed another 20 or 30% from it if allowed.

My guess is that with more feedback such as yours the powers that be will begin to understand they may have been a bit too conservative and make a change.

However for now the limit is where it is.

For the record Caldera is the main competitor to the rip I am responsible for but it is not at fault here - Onyx behaves the same as does Colorgate and when EFI get round to building a driver this will be the same too.

Also the curves cannot be altered as the calibrations are not done in the rip but on the printer (btw light ink curves do nothing for gamut only smoothness in lighter tones so this wouldn't be a factor anyway)

 

[CES020]

Can't you add a new material group? I thought you could add material groups (i.e. Self-Adhesive, Self-Adhesive Hi Ink, Solvent Paper, etc.).

 

[dypinc]

Hi

Also the curves cannot be altered as the calibrations are not done in the rip but on the printer (btw light ink curves do nothing for gamut only smoothness in lighter tones so this wouldn't be a factor anyway)

Not exactly. By eliminating light inks you should be able increase gamut because your total inks are spread over 4 inks and not 6 especially for 50% on up. Without controls over the light inks how do you know how much light inks are added into the mix above 50%.

 

[dypinc]

Can't you add a new material group? I thought you could add material groups (i.e. Self-Adhesive, Self-Adhesive Hi Ink, Solvent Paper, etc.).

Do you have documentation for this?

So far I have found nothing about adding material groups.

 

[P Wagner]

Not exactly. By eliminating light inks you should be able increase gamut because your total inks are spread over 4 inks and not 6 especially for 50% on up. Without controls over the light inks how do you know how much light inks are added into the mix above 50%.

Light inks in the HP Latex inksets (lc and lm specifically) are part of the C and M channels, and do not increase gamut volume in midtones in any significant way. In fact, with the prior latex models, many RIPs have over-used the light inks in their canned profiles, increasing coalescence and causing various other problems.

With the 300 series, HP has significantly reduced the number of printhead nozzles dedicated to the light inks, cutting them by about half. This was done to solve the issues with coalesence, and to allow for the addition of the optimizer, without increasing the number of printheads to the machine.

 

[dypinc]

In fact, with the prior latex models, many RIPs have over-used the light inks in their canned profiles, increasing coalescence and causing various other problems.

Boy you sure are right there. That is the biggest reason I never used canned profiles and always created my own.

 

[AF]

Do you have documentation for this?

So far I have found nothing about adding material groups.

Here is the link to the L360 operating manual:

http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/si...x.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

Starting on page 92 is the process to add a new material.

After reading through this in more detail, I cannot believe how watered down the printer is in regards to user control of things like ink limits. HP should have a "pro" mode where you can turn off all that stuff for situations where the generic internal settings and profiles simply won't work. The scariest thing I read in the manual is HP recommending to use "generic" ICC profiles and not to make custom ones. It seems they are gearing this device for the novice / prosumer market with the dumbed down controls. I still can't believe that your rip has no ability to override all the internal settings.

Ink limits are a black art, having a printer choose a value that is much too low and then preventing you from changing it doesn't make sense. There must be more to it than we see here.

 

[AF]

From the HP L360 troubleshooting guide:

Substrate presets are designed to achieve consistent and reliable print quality on a broad range of
substrates. However, you may want to consider investing in the color management process, using
external tools and/or experts, to get specific results. The best dark colors on gloss vinyls and other
substrates are normally obtained when using as much black and as little composite as possible when
creating the ICC profile.
​

Here is your answer. The generic settings are not designed for optimal output, but rather for successful output on anything you run in the printer. For correct color and curing, you still need to use an external ICC solution. I can only assume from this that your rip will be able to override the printer's default settings and profiles.

 

[dypinc]

At this point I can tell you that Caldera can't override the setting in the printer. When printing an ink limit target I cannot even get any coalescing. Go back and read Hotspur's comments. It seems that all RIPs will be this way, but it is something I will be investigating. Like you, from what I read I though that the RIPs would be able to override the settings. I am using a combination of allowing the printer to read the linearization target and then reading the profile target with the i1Pro 2 all commanded from Caldera. But I haven't a clue why Caldera includes an Ink Limit target and wants you to set ink limits when you can't even print a target that will have coalescing. I am printing a bleed target with the ink limit set at 400% right now just to see if it makes any difference. It has printed and it makes no difference. Might as well leave it a 400%. At least I have control over the substrate profile that way, but if you can't lay down more ink there is nothing the profile can do about that.

Now that I have some experience I can see what HP was talking about, profiling only and not ink limits.

I have started experimenting with the backlit settings and I think it would be workable for high gamut but 12pass is the lowest you can go. A waste of print time if I have to do a large banner run.

 

[AF]

There are so many different materials you can print Latex on if you take the time to dial in ALL the settings and create custom profiles. If the new series of latex have eliminated this control, it will severely limit what can be printed on with professional results.

There must be a setting in the rip to override printer settings, or a setting on the printer to honor rip settings. Could it be that you are not familiar enough with Caldera? It has a wonky interface so maybe there is a toggle tucked away somewhere? Can't quite digest the fact that the new printers are so limited.

 

[dypinc]

Another thing with parts of color management on the printer, at least with Caldera it has to wake the printer up just RIP only a file. Wonder what happens when the printer is turned off, will the RIP even work?

Onyx guy, please reply to this.

 

[Hotspur]

reality check?

With the printer off, the two way communication is lost and all that entails.

You can rip a job in Onyx but I think that Caldera wants to ping the printer before it does even that as it wants to check what media is loaded - Onyx assumes it hasn't changed from last time or allows you to choose something else.

Once the printer is switched on it will ping the rip and change it to the correct substrate anyway.

Btw there is NO override in any rip - the ink limit settings are done on the printer during the first stage of the on-board profiling process and everything sits on top of this despite the fact that the proper graphics rips will allow you to include ink limits etc in their profiling system, not just icc's.

In the past I have used settings on the printer that give me too much ink and instead of limiting them on the printer I select the highest ink loading possible (still wet) and move on to the next page.

Here I just name and finish the profile then go to the rip to do everything there - sometimes it gives me a modicum of control back.

yesterday I was profiling some forgiving SAV which was drying easily at 120% at 10p - I couldn't put more ink down to get better gamut as i was limited to 120% and although i could easily speed the printer up, if I went to 8p I am forced to go back to 100% ink and my gamut goes out of the window, but the result was good anyway at 120% 10p.

However its worth noting that yesterdays job also involved profiling and colour matching to an L260 - the profile on the 260 took four times longer and wasn't any better.

In theory as I had more control of the inks on the L260 there certainly is the ability to squeeze more gamut than i achieved on the 360 but I ran out of time to go back and tweak more which is really the crux of the matter.

Just because I have the ability to optimize a profile using the L260 doesn't mean I have the time - so if it doesn't get done (or the operator doesn't have the knowledge) how is that better than what we now have?

I guess we should try look at the big picture - HP may be removing the ability for me to fully optimize my profile...but if I can build four times as many and they are 95% as good with no experience required I suppose that's the progress HP are aiming for.