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Issues with Flexi Ripping & Color issues

Chops

New Member
I am designing in Adobe Illustrator CS3 and ripping in Flexi Sign Pro 8.1v1. I am printing to a Mimaki JVC-160. I design on on computer and import into flexi on another computer. The colors on the second monitor look a little different than the first computer. The colors from the rip station monitor don't look anything close to that of the print. I am use to this being a little off but this is REALLY off. Things are really dark. Does anyone have any ideas or thoughts on what I am doing wrong. Thanks
 

SightLine

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Also Flexi has a feature called "Soft Proof" which is obviously enabled. That is supposed to give an on screen view of what the printed peice will actually look like based on the profiles that are configured. You can turn soft proof off and it will look much better on screen - might still look like cr*p printed though if you do not have a proper color workflow and profiles configured.
 

mark in tx

New Member
Step 1- monitors need to be calibrated
Step 2- Adobe and Flexi need to be working in the same color spaces-(ex. Adobe RGB for bitmap, US Web Coated SWOP for vector, Flexi color settings input profile and rendering intent)
Step 3- get the printer calibrated and profiled for each material and print speed
Step 4- Profit!
 

Kwiksigns

wookie
Flexi's Color Management, or lack there of, sucks. We have had nothing but problems trying to get color to look good. Get a new RIP and maybe try downloading some profiles from the distributors websites.
 

jwright350

New Member
Personally, I've played around with the color settings in Flexi quite a bit over the years...and I can never quite get it to display on the monitor correctly.

I have actually used an i1 color meter to calibrate my monitors and write my own output profiles...and they still really aren't correct....but you really shouldn't be using your monitor to pick colors!

So... when possible I do all my work in Illustrator using Process colors (use the Pantone process color guide to help you pick colors), then just open/print from Flexi.

And then don't forget to warn customers not to approve colors based on what their monitor shows...if they are that particular have them call out PMS colors (they'll always use spot and never process) and then proof a physical sample that represents the color shift from spot to process.


Recently I've even been having problems with different output when adding directly to production manager (v8.6) becuase it (for some reason) doesn't want to read my output profiles. So! I went into the tools and unchecked the box which gives flexi/production manager priority and told it to prompt me when there was a discrepancy...that way I could make sure the correct output profile is being used. So now I'm back to opening everything in flexi first. And since flexi has horrible support for postscript transparency effects I have to rasterize lots of the artwork in photoshop first.
 

Shift Designs

New Member
Just my 2 cents here, i am really new to this. But i have a company i am printing for that requires particular pms colors. The best luck i have had, is printing all my vector with spot color. It prints the closest to the pantone i have been able to get. If this is incorrect or should be done another way, please someone chime in.
 

bob

It's better to have two hands than one glove.
Just my 2 cents here, i am really new to this. But i have a company i am printing for that requires particular pms colors. The best luck i have had, is printing all my vector with spot color. It prints the closest to the pantone i have been able to get. If this is incorrect or should be done another way, please someone chime in.

Print a Pantone chart and hang it on a wall. Then find a color on that chart that is the closest match to whatever Pantone number you're trying to match. More often than not there's a color on the printed chart that will more closely match a specific PMS number than the color for that number. If you have two colors that seem to match, always choose the darker.
 
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