HP Latex 365 color consistency

[Jay137]

Hi guys!

Good day! Just wanna ask some suggestions/advises. I've been having trouble printing grey on my HP Latex 365. For some reason all of a sudden, it's printing too much magenta on it and turns out pinkish. Only having trouble with grey though. I've tried all the print tests and calibration, changing the ALL print heads, deleting and re-installing all the profiles used from the printer. And still nothing helps from these methods. Could it be a problem with the ripping software? Currently using Caldera Rip V11.2
Does anybody had this issue and resolved it? TIA for the replies.

Kind regards,
Jay

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

The best method to start with is to see if it still does it in 4 color mode.

What changes have you made before this happened? Any firmware updates or rip software updates?

 

[FrankW]

Be aware of the influence of light to printed colours. Artificial light very often let grey show up reddish. Look if the colour deviation to red is still there if looking at your print under daylight. When the printer does a calibration, it will calibrate the colours to a maximum color accuracy under the standard illuminant D50 (near to daylight).

Regularly, if doing a real calibration (includes creating an ICC-profile), the colour should look grey when looking at under daylight. If this is the problem, you could set daylight light sources into your print room.

Problems with old printheads can lead to that issue too, but as you have mentioned all printheads are new? And you really have done a colour calibration with all steps (including ink limits, color calibration (linearization) and ICC-Profile?

 

[Jay137]

2CT Media I have tried it in just CMYK but the color looks pale as. Definitely did a software upgrade but I don't think it has something to do with it printing pink. Haven't done any rip software upgrade. We're suspecting that color changes happened when we did a color calibration but not 100% sure. I will try to attach some test prints when I can.

 

[Jay137]

FrankW we already tried looking under a daylight and still looks the same. Yes all printheads are definitely new less than a month old. We even tried cleaning all the sensors in the machine and didn't help. Definitely done all those calibration but still no difference. As I've said above, we think that calibrating it made it worse. But not 100% sure.

 

[Bly]

I had one profile that went way off for no apparent reason. I deleted it and created another and it's been fine ever since.

 

[Jay137]

Hi Bly thanks for the input, as I've said above, we already tried that method, first time we did it, it worked but after a while it came back to pink again and every time we try to delete the profile from the printer and rip, it just doesn't do anything anymore.

UPDATE: 3 techs already came in and they weren't sure what was the problem. So here we are stuck with a printer that isn't functional when we have to print grey colours.
They reckon it was the profile but it's happening on all kind of profiles and medias.

 

[dypinc]

It's not clear what you doing so if I may ask.

When you calibrate and then make a new output profile, are your grays acceptable at that point?

Then over time they drift? When they drift does re-calibration bring them to being acceptable? If not then you likely have a hardware problem maybe onboard spectro, but could also be ink delivery system. I assume printheads have been changed. While it is possible for a profile to get corrupted on the RIP it is highly unlikely. Possible operator error in that case, but not likely if you're printing the same already RIPed file again.

 

[Asuma01]

Have you tried switch out to new print heads anyways? I had a problem similar to this on my HP 560 where the print head test prints looked fine. But when the printer actually got going on real prints they dropped out. Changing the print heads fixed the problem.

Since your greys are looking too pink start by changing out the cyan heads first.
HP refunded the broken print heads. Make sure to keep them because we had to sip the broken ones back to them.

 

[Jay137]

Hi Asuma01 thanks for the input. Yes as I've said above, ALL of the printheads had been changed but it doesn't seem to help; if anything, it's getting worst.

 

[Jay137]

Hi dypinc right, so when the other tech came in, he tried making a new profile and calibrated it, still getting the same results, no difference. Colour is pretty consistent printing pink. We tried three different files, on three different medias and profile but it's still pretty consistent.

 

[FrankW]

Perhaps a problem with the internal Spectro? Would give calibration in the RIP with an external Spectro a try.

 

[dypinc]

Hi dypinc right, so when the other tech came in, he tried making a new profile and calibrated it, still getting the same results, no difference. Colour is pretty consistent printing pink. We tried three different files, on three different medias and profile but it's still pretty consistent.

One thing to try if it has not already been done is to create a new media preset. Choose new media from the top of the list and don't clone any existing media preset. Then calibrate new media preset and make a new output profile. There were firmware updates on the 360s that messed up all media presets and re-calibration did not correct the problem. Cloning media presets had the same problem. Starting over with a new media was the only thing that worked.

 

[Jay137]

One thing to try if it has not already been done is to create a new media preset. Choose new media from the top of the list and don't clone any existing media preset. Then calibrate new media preset and make a new output profile. There were firmware updates on the 360s that messed up all media presets and re-calibration did not correct the problem. Cloning media presets had the same problem. Starting over with a new media was the only thing that worked.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. When I said above the tech made a new profile, that's what I meant, he made a new media preset and calibrated it and didn't really make much difference.

 

[Jay137]

Perhaps a problem with the internal Spectro? Would give calibration in the RIP with an external Spectro a try.

Hi FrankW I'm don't really know these things. Would you mind enlightening me?

 

[FrankW]

Hi FrankW I'm don't really know these things. Would you mind enlightening me?

For creating an ICC-Profile, the latex uses an integrated spectrophotometer. That the profiles are printer based is a specialty of the HP Latex in the signmaking industry, for regular halftone printers the profiles are created in the RIP (or for the RIP with a separate software) with a spectrophotometer like the XRite i1. Most RIP's has integrated ICC-Profiling capabilities as standard or optional, in addition is standalone software available.

When I (as a supporter) run into problems with the internal profiles, I would set up one in the RIP with an external spectrophotometer. Unfortunately, often hardware technicians are not familiar with such possibilities, in our company are hardware technicians too with low knowledge of software and colour management. But there should be people around who could create such a profile for you as a service.

 

[dypinc]

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. When I said above the tech made a new profile, that's what I meant, he made a new media preset and calibrated it and didn't really make much difference.

I think if I was in your situation I would do a reverse process of elimination. I would download a cmyk test image like this. http://www.iso12647solution.com/Colorsource_free_CMYK_SRA3_test_forms.htm

Then create a new media preset from the top of the list. No cloning. Do not calibrate or profile this media preset. Then have Caldera sync the new media preset and print the test page from the rip with all color management turn off. It may not look correct and that is fine.

Now calibrate the media preset, and then send the same print job again with all color management off. Note changes and if it looks worse then you can bet that there is an onboard spectro problem. If it looks better than go on and make a profile. Re-sync the media preset and bring the new output profile into Caldera. Now print from the RIP with color management on using the new output profile. Does it look worse or better. If worse I would investigate your RIP settings. If you have the EasyMedia module and can use a external spectrophotometer I would do that. That would be a good clue if it was the onboard spectro that is causing the problem.

Back to the no color management print after calibration if it is worse and your printer is under warranty than I would request a replace on the integrated spectrophotometer.

After writing the above a question came to mind. Are you sure Caldera is pulling in (syncing) the newly created profile and not using the old generic or canned output profile when first connected to the printer?

 

[Myrecs]

If it is still relevant. We have 335 latex and met the same problem. For some reason grey color printed good only when we used standard profiles or their copy without changing ink percentage. But if you changed ink parameter then you cant reverse normal color back even if you change percentage to previous value - all grey will be reddish. Only deleting profile and using standard profile helps. It think when ink percentage was changed printer mistakenly creates bad color values inside profile but you are not able to see it or somehow to influence it.

 

[darrellcarpenay]

Hi guys! Good day! Just wanna ask some suggestions/advises. I've been having trouble printing grey on my HP Latex 365. For some reason all of a sudden, it's printing too much magenta on it and turns out pinkish. Only having trouble with grey though. I've tried all the print tests and calibration, changing the ALL print heads, deleting and re-installing all the profiles used from the printer. And still nothing helps from these methods. Could it be a problem with the ripping software? Currently using Caldera Rip V11.2 Does anybody had this issue and resolved it? TIA for the replies. Kind regards, Jay

Hello Everyone,

I've been having this same problem with my HP Latex 365. Problem only occurs when I need to print desaturated / black and white images. We get this pinkish tone that's coming from the magenta - this occurs due to the color correction feature in the Flexi software we're using. Once the color correction is turned off, we get the grayscale image but it doesn't come out accurate (instead, very dark images are produced).

I have a feeling that this is due to some media profiles that have incorrect color calibration. Will do some tests tomorrow and see what happens.

If anyone else has encountered this problem and found a solution, please share.

 

[darrellcarpenay]

If it is still relevant. We have 335 latex and met the same problem. For some reason grey color printed good only when we used standard profiles or their copy without changing ink percentage. But if you changed ink parameter then you cant reverse normal color back even if you change percentage to previous value - all grey will be reddish. Only deleting profile and using standard profile helps. It think when ink percentage was changed printer mistakenly creates bad color values inside profile but you are not able to see it or somehow to influence it.

I think you might be correct here. I'll run some tests to see the results. Thanks