How to Print true CMYK ???

[equippaint]

Cant say that I understand how you can take cmyk inks and hit something outside of the cmyk gamut either. It seems to defy logic but its talked about quite often. I would think with a good profile that the less color conversions you have the better result you will get? I could see letting the rip convert any rgb files that you have rather than the design software doing it but not blank canvas designing?

 

[iPrintStuff]

Going to go out on a limb and assume that you’re using an RGB monitor, maybe just the case that your printer can have a larger gamut than an RBG screen showing cmyk values can show you? Could very well be talking nonsense though!

 

[ikarasu]

It's beneficial to orinters that have non CMYK colors like red and orange.

I think if your profiles correctly, CMYK is fine. Most machines are not profiled correctly... So RGB gives better results.

Onyx for example doesn't print in RGB. You feed it an RGB file.and it converts all those colors to CMYK and sends the results to your printer as CMYK values.

The only thing you're doing by ripping in RGB, is telling the profile to interpret the results differently.

I'm by no means an expert in colors and profiling. But I do know computers and how programs.work, including data. So take my.explanation with a grain of salt... Should.be right, but could be wrong.


Take an RGB file. Rip it over and print it. Now go back into that RGB file via your rip software and get the CMYK values. Use those values to print something else... The colors will match perfectly. It's a bit more.complicated than that... But basically you're just tellong your rip to interpret the results differently. You have to use the correct profiles, both input and output to get accurate results.
But theoretically designing in RGB doesnt allow your CMYK printer to hit more colors... Its just a quick, easy Fix anyone can do to get more vibrant colors without setting up their machines properly.

It's like when a tech tells you to restart your PC to fix a problem. It's the simple, quick fix that just "works" without further explanation.

 

[ColorCrest]

I'd like to hear one of you colour "wizards" explain why anyone would design in RGB when the application is a CMYK printer output. If your system is fully colour-managed to deliver the maximum CMYK gamut your printer can output, that means you have custom ICC profiles that are in CMYK space. Shouldn't you be sending those ICC profiles to your clients so they can design in your printer's gamut?

Common RGB color spaces (sRGB, Adobe 1998, ProPhoto, and a few others) generally provide more universal use applications than a device specific CMYK color space. Nowadays, a vast amount of graphic production is targeted to both screen display of some type AND print of some type. A smart design shop can create a single file in RGB and have both targeted end-use result with very similar colors.

However, it is misconception that RGB is a larger color gamut than CMYK. It depends upon what RGB space one is considering against what CMYK space one is considering. For example, both Adobe 1998 and sRGB can be deficient in cyan colors against certain Epson eco-sol printers.

Designers need to have any and all working space profiles and output space profiles at their disposal so they can create colors which match among their intended targets. Unfortunately that's usually a lowest common denominator such as sRGB for websites on older monitors and CMYK only printers. It's then often required to sacrifice cyan gamut that a good CMYK printer may be capable of but sRGB (even Adobe 1998) can't reach, and also sacrifice warmer colors that CMYK might lack but the two common RGB spaces can reach.

Another very important factor of the common RGB color spaces is the fact that they are neutral as far as black through the gray scale to white. Knowing that 3 equal numbers is gospel and that carries a lot of weight wherever the file is to be reproduced. If a color is specified as 128, 128, 128 the color should result to neutral gray on any device. What are definite neutral values for CMYK on any device? Or black values for any CMYK device?

Knowing common, ubiquitous values for neutrals can easily reveal if a workflow and print process is controlled or not. The G7 method (and others) can certainly help with the task as well as far as values for CMYK work.

Shouldn't you be sending those ICC profiles to your clients so they can design in your printer's gamut?

Some print machine companies provide their CMYK ICC profile. For the space to be valid a print shop would need to be calibrated to the same spec as when the space was created and published. The first test would be to learn how neutral gray prints from the given print shop and this is but one way how some print vendors are tested and qualified.

 

[De.signs Nanaimo]

DO NOT design in RGB for print ever. Leave that for the web were it belongs, RGB is for light shining through a colour, CMYK is for light reflecting off that colour. I have worked with many top companies, Starbucks, 7-11, McDonalds, Tim Horton's and anything other than print ready CMYK pdf's are not accepted, ever. I have run many large format printers, and colour management is an art and a science, and not practiced well by most shops.

if you are sending pure CMYK colours to your (proven) media and it is not printing correctly then your profile is off, either it needs tweaking, or a new profile.

 

[equippaint]

I have always thought that the general rule was to design to your output.

 

[ColorCrest]

I have always thought that the general rule was to design to your output.

What would that entail, exactly? Using specifically different color values in separate files destined to different vendors because their processes don't necessarily match amongst other vendors?

No, workflow is much like the Pantone method and has been in use for a very long time. Adhere to a known color guide which has limits and where it's then the job of the vendor to make a match. One can know a RGB color space, or even a certain CMYK color space, is neutral with a certain gamut that most, or all, of the output can satisfy.

The difference nowadays is many printing machines can create certain color beyond the limits of Adobe RGB (1998) and certainly beyond U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2, two of the most common color spaces.

 

[ColorCrest]

First blush appears the Adobe RGB encompasses the lowly CMYK photo paper. Notice its failure in the cyan colors from a different angle though. This particularly impacts work from my neck of the woods which we call blue-water / blue-sky industries.

SWOP is another outdated preference.

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

DO NOT design in RGB for print ever.

As an Epson S80600 owner, I just have to laugh at the naivety of this comment. This printer can outprint virtually every other machine at the moment colour-wise.
If designs were all CMYK, we wouldn't use half the gamut the machine is capable of.

 

[De.signs Nanaimo]

As an Epson S80600 owner, I just have to laugh at the naivety of this comment. This printer can outprint virtually every other machine at the moment colour-wise.
If designs were all CMYK, we wouldn't use half the gamut the machine is capable of.

It does not matter what YOUR printer is capable of, you need to keep to CMYK to retain consistent branding across platforms, I don't just do one type of printing for clients I brand them head to toe.

Unless you want me to run down to your shop every time I need a print? How are your rack card colours, or business cards, what gamut do you use then? When I prep a print file for a client that is having it printed overseas, what then should I do, design for one specific printer? Don't call someone naive when you just betray your own lack of knowledge.

 

[MelloImagingTechnologies]

onlune rgb has a larger color gamut than online cmyk profiles. But some of the better printers, like the OkiData and Epson line has a wider color gamut set of cmyk inks than the online cmyk gamut.
So you create the digital rgb file and then the proper rip software- Onyx , converts it to the wider gamut cmyk outputs for these printers.

 

[equippaint]

Im confused. Can someone explain how you can go beyond the gamut of the 4 colors you have to work with. With no other ink added, how can you exceed every single mathematical combination of the ink set you have without adding another color? If you design in cmyk, what constrains someone from using every last bit of this spectrum as well? Honestly im not trying to argue but this makes no sense to me.

 

[Biggermens]

Oh my i did not expect a argument hehe
I would Quote a few people but there is to many hehe
One got exactly what i am trying to do, I do a test print and all the print heads have plugged up nozzles
I wanted to see what one or 2 or 3 heads is causing my problem, I will try to do the test in service mode
when i put it back together and see how that comes out.
I took it apart to clean and oil it, decided to also paint it hehe, yes i know its just a printer hehe
I am obsessive compulsive perfectionist, :-( I also added some led inside witch is pretty cool, I can post pictures when i am done

Thanks

 

[SignMeUpGraphics]

I also added some led inside witch is pretty cool.

Always handy to see what's going on during print. We've done it to all printers in the workshop that didn't already come with one from the factory. Cheap and easy mod which can occasionally save a headache down the track.

 

[Biggermens]

Yap i also put one in inside the hole at the other end were you manually clean the heads
Its dark in there

 

[ikarasu]

Oh my i did not expect a argument hehe

Welcome to S101, where your questions go unanswered and your topics get derailed. Where arguments over anything and everything break out

All kidding aside, good luck! Leds are a great addition. After getting g a printer with them built in,I can't imagine not having them. It'd be my first upgrade to any printer.

 

[Biggermens]

Thanks
I will post Pictures when i am done the paint etc..
Thinking of also putting on a set of chrome wheels

 

[JoeDG]

Hey guys,
Thought I'd jump in and try to answer the original question for you...replying in specific to printing on a Roland with VersaWorks (I am a Roland trainer and teach people about this all the time!).

So...there are a few of options.

1. If you have designed your print file with only the CMYK blocks all at 100% you can print in VersaWorks by selecting the colour management preset Density Control Only under the quality tab - color management section. This effectively turns off the Color Management and so your 100% CMYK values will print correctly, any RGB info will look weird.
2. You could also use spot colors. Print the Roland Color Systems Library from the Media menu option in VersaWorks.
   In the Colour Chart Type 1 you will see a range of spot colours, and it lists which of these are the 100% values for colours. Select these (Y= PR01K, C=PR19K, M=PR35K, K=BK21A) from the Roland Color Systems Library in your design programme - save as either PDF or EPS. Import into VersaWorks and make sure you select 'Convert Spot Colors' option in File Format tab.
   The spot colours will print using only the 100% values regardless of what Color Management option you choose.
3. You mentioned 'Preserve Primary Colours' tick box within the Color Management preset options. And yes - this will keep any 100% values as 100%, so if you printed using Sign&Display it would also work as this option is selected within that preset.

I won't plough on in on all the other bits...except to say that in VersaWorks it depends on your Color Management choice as to what happens to both your CMYK and RGB colour values. If you are looking for accuracy over gamut size, then you wouldn't design in RGB necessarily.
This post could go on for ever if we went down that rabbit hole - hence why we offer training courses here in the UK in which we go over these finer points for those interested.

Different RIPs will do it differently too.

Hope that helps!?

For a bit more info on using the Roland Spot Colour Library I made this video years ago:

And this one for Pantones:

Cheers!

 

[dypinc]

I'd like to hear one of you colour "wizards" explain why anyone would design in RGB when the application is a CMYK printer output. If your system is fully colour-managed to deliver the maximum CMYK gamut your printer can output, that means you have custom ICC profiles that are in CMYK space. Shouldn't you be sending those ICC profiles to your clients so they can design in your printer's gamut?

Hell you can't even get designer/clients to assign the basic default (hopefully) CMYK working/output profiles. No matter how much I remind them about assigning profile,I am always having to guess what they used. How the hell do you expect them to use one of you output devices profile? And if they neglect to assign that profile, then what? What will be the result of your guess wrong then?

What if you are using different output devices with different gamuts? Or different media with same output device? How many output profiles are you going to have to provide them and hope they use the correct one for the media they ultimately decide on. One of them will have to be converted anyway and if converted then you will have to figure out what output profile to assign as the input profile. Why not let the RIP do the conversion from a standard RGB or CMYK working space?

The argument for designing in RGB is that in most cases you will be able to maximize gamut for each individual output device converting from RGB to output device profile. Internally I use that model. But on the other hand most designer/clients have no clue about color management and don't care to learn so to quit banging my head against the wall trying to explain to them I just let them use the old standard (out of date for 2019 printing) CMYK profiles. They get what they get which in most cases is okay with them as they don't know what they are missing gamut wise. If they really want to hit a certain color I advise them to use named spot colors.

 

[SightLine]

Another RGB design shop here..... we do use pro NEC PA series monitors and we have have an i1 Pro which we use to create all of our own custom profiles end to end for the monitors, our own custom profiles for Flexi, etc. Aside from that there are some good points made by ColorCrest and others as well.

One thing I think throws many people off is they, in their head, assume there is a correlation between a default design software CMYK profile (US Web Coated SWOP or any other default CMYK profile) and the CMYK inks in your machines. The CMYK inks in your machines are capable of a far greater range of color than those crippled default design CMYK profiles can describe and have no correlation to the CMYK inks in your printer. This is why shops who design in RGB often get much more vivid color. RGB files do also tend to be smaller as well since there is one less color channel.

Good points by ColorCrest for consistency though is to in many respects cripple the range of color by restricting it to a very common lowest denominator that just about any print process can print. That will indeed help to assure consistency across a wide range of printing processes. That is also the reality for major companies who are having things printed by thousands of different companies worldwide. That being said, for many, the majority of your business is a bit less "critical" and are more open to vivid rich color where "perceptual" works just fine.

On top of that then we also have Pantone colors which help greatly in assuring consistency but only in that at least the print provider can know for certain what a specific color "should" look like. That however does not mean that they can actually print that specific color but at least they might be able to try and get close. There are also corporate colors that there is no Pantone match for as well such as Coca Cola red. That particular one is one that we work with often and the CMYK value for it produces truly awful results but they do provide the value as well as RGB, HEX, and a full specular reflectance curve with absolute Lab values.

So in the end it is complicated. Different companies have different types of clients, different machines, different needs, and more. There are things out there to try and address and help with color management like G7 but it is still a complex thing to tackle and different shops are going to tackle it in different ways that they have found works for them. Some might be way off but if it works for them than that is just fine.

As other mentioned - all of the color discussion is way off topic though. It seem that all OP needed was either to be told how to access the built in test prints in his printer or how to instruct his RIP to use spot colors.