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Illustrator and photoshop not printing same blue.

altereddezignz

New Member
If anyone has used onyx you know you can print color swatches or a swatch table based off a scan color or an input color. I did this directly out of onyx and it matches the colors printed from photoshop but not the colors printed from illustrator. Maybe this will help someone to finding a solution for the issue i am having as i have not yet...
Thanks

Any other masters of Ai, Ps, Color or onyx have any ideas to try. I so far have tried every thing that has been put in front of me to try and figure this issue out.
Thanks
 

Andy_warp

New Member
I guess the main question I have is what are these images/layouts you are creating?
If you are designing it all, is it necessary to use both photoshop and Illy?

There are half baked methods to achieve what you are trying to do...such as point sampling the color in job editor, and altering it.
What can happen is the color replacement only happens with that exact color of that exact pixel...the nature of pixels tend to have minute variations of that color...they don't change.
You'll get fringing around the corrected colors boundary.

Maybe a screenshot of a "finished" print layout could help in allowing us to give direction.

I saw your screenshots in post #19. This is what you want it to say. If a named color pops in there...you have full control of that color and can put in any build you like.
It's great to do it this way, because they are DEVICE numbers. A cmyk build by itself really means squat unless you are physically mixing ink...we don't do that with digital printing.
Clients try to give me CMYK builds, and I have to tell them that won't work...because...what brand of ink? what printer? what substrate?
The rip gives your the ability to narrow all of your input profiles...output profiles...rendering intents...blah blah blah into 4 easy to deal with values c/m/y/k
Point sample the blue you are trying to hit in the raster portion of the layout...and input it as the build in your color replacement tab for that NAMED spot color.

When you used a NAMED spot color, you are tapping into the rips licensed use of The Pantone Matching System.
What that means is Onyx takes your Pantone color, and gives you the closest possible match to pantones known measured values with your media/printer.
They pay big bucks for licensed use of Pantones Matching System.

It has to be vector data. The reason this is the route you want to go is when tints or gradients of the named spot color are used, they all shift with your correction.

I hope this doesn't sound condescending...there is A LOT to know about color management. I got a lot of my chops from sites just like this.
I guess sometimes you just have to look at the WHOLE process of creating your graphics, instead of finding a work around.

I want to help...I do...
 

altereddezignz

New Member
I guess the main question I have is what are these images/layouts you are creating?
If you are designing it all, is it necessary to use both photoshop and Illy?

There are half baked methods to achieve what you are trying to do...such as point sampling the color in job editor, and altering it.
What can happen is the color replacement only happens with that exact color of that exact pixel...the nature of pixels tend to have minute variations of that color...they don't change.
You'll get fringing around the corrected colors boundary.

Maybe a screenshot of a "finished" print layout could help in allowing us to give direction.

I saw your screenshots in post #19. This is what you want it to say. If a named color pops in there...you have full control of that color and can put in any build you like.
It's great to do it this way, because they are DEVICE numbers. A cmyk build by itself really means squat unless you are physically mixing ink...we don't do that with digital printing.
Clients try to give me CMYK builds, and I have to tell them that won't work...because...what brand of ink? what printer? what substrate?
The rip gives your the ability to narrow all of your input profiles...output profiles...rendering intents...blah blah blah into 4 easy to deal with values c/m/y/k
Point sample the blue you are trying to hit in the raster portion of the layout...and input it as the build in your color replacement tab for that NAMED spot color.

When you used a NAMED spot color, you are tapping into the rips licensed use of The Pantone Matching System.
What that means is Onyx takes your Pantone color, and gives you the closest possible match to pantones known measured values with your media/printer.
They pay big bucks for licensed use of Pantones Matching System.

It has to be vector data. The reason this is the route you want to go is when tints or gradients of the named spot color are used, they all shift with your correction.

I hope this doesn't sound condescending...there is A LOT to know about color management. I got a lot of my chops from sites just like this.
I guess sometimes you just have to look at the WHOLE process of creating your graphics, instead of finding a work around.

I want to help...I do...

I will take any help i get via it be good or bad lol or forward or backwards.
For this customer yes it would have to be built in both PS and AI but at different times. The actual logo is created in AI as i do all of my logos in AI b/c of the availability and so on.
The issue comes in when i need to add in different styles and or layers with shadows and things along this nature. Now i may just have to forget how to use PS and ONLY use AI but at this point and time not sure how fully.

The blue is a specific blue or the Pantone Process blue for a better understanding and me not just stating blue.
I am not at work at the moment but i can post screenshots of what i am talking about.
Thinkg like layer overlays and items that i am not sure you can do in illustrator is the issues i have problems with creating solely in AI and not in AI an PS.

Normally i will create the logo portion in AI and create all my effects per say in PS and save to a Tiff and use that. Up until now with having a new Printer and color software i have never noticed an issue or really had an issue. Before now the printer i used had issues and would way over saturate images and prints so the colors were a lot closer but never right for the most part.

Hope this helps a little and does not make it worse lol.

Thank you though.
 

Andy_warp

New Member
You would be surprised of the layer effects and styles you can do with Illustrator. If you give it a shot I would warn you of a few things.

Avoid pantone to pantone gradients...they will neutralize in the middle. Pick most critical spot color (which you can adjust in the rip) and a process color cmyk (no control at the rip)
The best way we have found to pull this off is the topmost object is, for instance, a gradient. Process Blue C 100% opaque to Process Blue C 0% opaque.
Make a copy of you object...send to back...place gradient object over it. You're basically making the gradient work with 2 objects. (see attached image)

Another thing to avoid is using blending modes other than multiply and normal...I've had objects with "overlay" blend mode not render in the rip...stick with multiply and normal...screen may work, testing required. :)

People shy away from building these effects in Illy because of what I've shown in my screen capture, the problem with Photoshop only is no control to correct at rip. The way I've shown, albeit more work up front, gives you the ability to correct a build on the fly, at the rip. (Simply find your named color in Onyx and adjust it) This way only the "critical" spot color will shift for you...not everything else! It's beautiful!

Nice that you bring humility to your questions...it goes a LONG way on forums like this. Getting a new printer and software with projects in the hopper is a flipping nightmare! Been there...best of luck to ya!

gradients.jpg
 

altereddezignz

New Member
So an update..
WEEEELLLLLLL Still a no go.
I have saved as every file type available in photoshop, I have exported as all available and still came color prints yet illustrator can print it fine.

No i did create the spot channel, my onyx rip software does the the Pantone Process Blue c as a spot color but for some reason from photoshop it does not print as that as it does in illustrator.

The pantone printing from illustrator is correct and is a the real color so i know the issue falls with photoshop.
 

billsines

New Member
what little i know

Ok so I'm a signmaker by trade...pretty much all cnc and some laser...but i will share what tiny knowledge I have. We got a Stratojet UV printer earlier this year to make signs...so I am totally new at printing. We were told to originate all artwork in cmyk. The RIP software we use is Caldera. We were told if artwork originates in RGB we might have some color troubles. We can RIP jpg and tiff, but were told to use pdf.

Again, I know nothing of any other printing processes, but just thought I'd pass on to you what we were told about our UV printer.

thanks and all the best...from a business perspective, i know the frustration of machines doing things you don't expect and having to figure out what's wrong. That can be very frustrating and challenging, especially when you have jobs that need to get done.

Bill
 

altereddezignz

New Member
The Pantone colors or the process blue when converted or even created in a CMYK document still prints the wrong blue.
I have a G7 color specialiest here today and we are working on this issue. The RGB file created in illustrator prints the file and color perfect.

Thank you billines for the info tho...

We design in RGB simply bc you get a larger color gamut and you reach better colors when printing. That and a lot of our files end up online.
 

altereddezignz

New Member
So still having this issue. Even when tryign to create a spot color in photoshop it prints the same CMYK mix and not the pantone.

I have followed several threads on how this is supposed to work but not worked for me yet.
 

dypinc

New Member
The Pantone colors or the process blue when converted or even created in a CMYK document still prints the wrong blue.
I have a G7 color specialiest here today and we are working on this issue. The RGB file created in illustrator prints the file and color perfect.

Thank you billines for the info tho...

We design in RGB simply bc you get a larger color gamut and you reach better colors when printing. That and a lot of our files end up online.

Two questions.

If you design in RGB why not use the Pantone RGB equivalent in both IL and PS?

I thought Onyx had a option to pick a color and assign another color to it. Even a Spot Color. Can't you do that and make both blues print with the same values?
 

eahicks

Magna Cum Laude - School of Hard Knocks
ANY spot color (PMS, etc) will print different when printing a raster or a vector version of it. Why? The raster is dots - a mix of colors. Printers these days now interpret SPOT colors as a SPOT color, and then convert to CMYKLcLm in most cases....that raster image is already being saved and processed to a theoretical CMYK mix....which can vary depending on what your settings are (perceptual, relative, etc). Then that gets ripped and converts to a CMYKLcLm mix (again most cases). So basically all you can do is pick one format or another, and you will get close.
 

altereddezignz

New Member
Two questions.

If you design in RGB why not use the Pantone RGB equivalent in both IL and PS?

I thought Onyx had a option to pick a color and assign another color to it. Even a Spot Color. Can't you do that and make both blues print with the same values?

We have tried using the equivalent in both and get different colors from illustrator than we do from photoshop..

We have found for sure now that illustrator keeps the spot color and photoshop converts spot colors to CMYK out of photoshop no matter what. We have saved as every option in photoshop and printed.

If there is an option i have yet to see or probably dont know where to look
 

altereddezignz

New Member
ANY spot color (PMS, etc) will print different when printing a raster or a vector version of it. Why? The raster is dots - a mix of colors. Printers these days now interpret SPOT colors as a SPOT color, and then convert to CMYKLcLm in most cases....that raster image is already being saved and processed to a theoretical CMYK mix....which can vary depending on what your settings are (perceptual, relative, etc). Then that gets ripped and converts to a CMYKLcLm mix (again most cases). So basically all you can do is pick one format or another, and you will get close.


To bad photoshop cant save or store the spot color indexing for print.. This would be a nice thing to have. We have tested and for sure it does convert any colors to cmyk in photoshop when saving it no matter how it is saved.
 

ImagePress

New Member
To bad photoshop cant save or store the spot color indexing for print.. This would be a nice thing to have. We have tested and for sure it does convert any colors to cmyk in photoshop when saving it no matter how it is saved.

We print white ink from photoshop all the time so I know it DOES save spot color info. We save it as a tif with spot colors checked and it works fine. We are using Caldera though so it sounds more like a RIP issue.
 

altereddezignz

New Member
Well dumb question but can you explain exactly how your doing it as a spot color in photoshop? There is a possibility I am doing it wrong but I don't think so. Now I am not ruling out onyx as the issue just haven't been able to figure it out.
 

dypinc

New Member
It would be nice if some of the many fanboys of Onyx on here would say how to change colors in Onyx. I am thinking I remember that was possible in Onyx when I tested it a couple of times.

I can easily do that in Colorgate and in fact I did just that with your file. The other RIP we run Fiery XF which I can't do that with, so maybe it is not possible in Onyx.
 

altereddezignz

New Member
I found the color replacement area in job editor but it allows you to use an eye dropper to select color to choose but it only allows you to enter cmyk only.
 

dypinc

New Member
I found the color replacement area in job editor but it allows you to use an eye dropper to select color to choose but it only allows you to enter cmyk only.

Check your Spot color and see if that is a CMYK value as well, because I think that eye dropper value is the output value to the printer. That is the way it works in Colorgate. Once you know the CMYK output value for the spot color then you can change the incorrect color to that value as well.
 

altereddezignz

New Member
Check your Spot color and see if that is a CMYK value as well, because I think that eye dropper value is the output value to the printer. That is the way it works in Colorgate. Once you know the CMYK output value for the spot color then you can change the incorrect color to that value as well.




I need to input a spot color not a cmyk color.. It allows me to select any color but it shows only a cmyk value even if it is the vector color.
 

altereddezignz

New Member
The only way i can actually select a spot color is if the file has it inbedded like a illustrator file.
Image attached. The other option is color replacement but it only allows me to input cmyk.

So i do not see a way to select a color and change it to a spot color so it prints like AI does.
 

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dypinc

New Member
You need to think of those CMYK value as a output color not an input color. That spot color your wanting ends up being a CMYK output color because that is how the printer is addresses. Because of the way your two color are read/input they output different The Spot Color Library tells what CMYK values based on your color management setting are to be sent to the printer. The CMYK input from raster gets told how to output based on your CMYK input profile covert by your CM to output CMYK values to your printer. Since the Vector Spot and the Raster do not have the same input values the output values will be different. The trick is and what the Color Replacement function should be is so that you can make those two different input colors the same output value that gets sent to your printer. There are also other uses for Color Replacement beside making your two colors print the same.

Your Vector Spot should show the CMYK value that is sent to the printer. If Onyx does not do that then that is a serious flaw, because in your situation you would have no way to know how to make those two colors match on the printer.

Do a test because those Color Replacement values should be the CMYK values that are sent to the printer. In the test you can try this. Make a CMYK input file with just 100% or each of the primary colors. Now RIP with CM on and check those color values with the eye dropper in Color Replacement. You will find they are not 100% any longer. Now Replace each with 100% only of it's color. If everything is working correctly as it should your printer will print 100% of each of the colors. How do you like your Black now!
 
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