Light Cyan and Light Magenta

[player]

Best to switch to CMYK x 2 to prevent further arguing here.

 

[Brink]

Well, Mike did kind of answer that question: ink breaks. If you know where your printer switches from using magenta to light magenta or cyan to light cyan, you should be able to create a file that would print pure light magenta or pure light cyan.

And those are some key words that leaves the question unanswered.

BTW I was quoted over 12 thousand dollars for the official Mimaki Color Target Emulator for my CJV30. $12K is not simple color management IMHO. The printer costs that much. Why should it cost twice as much to buy a printer that can print the color you asked for. $12k/$5 = 2400 trial and eyeball tests before I run into the cost of proper manufacturer sanctioned color management. I have only had to do it like 3 times since I started working with this machine.

 

[Correct Color]

Your way probably works just fine, as does mine. The difference being that yours is spectacularly complex where mine is a model of simplicity.

In point of fact, Bob, you are completely mistaken.

In fact, every single one of my clients is amazed by how easy and non-complex Color By Correct Color is once I set it up and put it all in place. Now, true, writing profiles that wring the best out of a particular machine is both an art and a skill, and I would say a talent, and it takes a great deal of time learning and to be good at it, let alone to truly master it.

But I have to say that what you still are either not grasping or refusing to admit you grasp is that every time you run a printer, you're using a profile that someone, somewhere, wrote.

And they used their own profiling tools, a specific ICC-profile-making engine, and whatever profile-making philosophy they have developed or were taught to create that profile.

And one of the sad truisms of this industry is that a bad profile is still a valid profile.

Does the profile you're using capture every bit of your machine’s capability in your environment on the media on which you’re printing? Does it use the capabilities built into your printer to their absolute best effect?

How do you know?

Fact is that once I make profiles, all my client has to do is use them. And they can be absolutely confident that their RIP is creating dots that both use all of all their printers’ capability, and also are as close to an accurate representation of the “truth” they are trying to print — the actual color values of the original file — as it is possible for them to achieve.

First print.

Every time.

No test swatches. No guesswork. Best print. First time. Every time. I’m doubting you can say that honestly.

They also I might point out get free lifetime tech support from me. So if there’s any issue or it doesn’t do what I say, they can get answers directly from me.

The difference being that I understand your way but you really don't seem to understand mine. You accept your various inputs as constants and expect the printer to bend to your will. Whereas I accept what can come out of the printer and adjust my input accordingly.

Okay, I’ll admit to laughing out loud at that. For real.

Bob, you honestly think I’ve never heard or seen that before?

I’ve been doing what I do as Correct Color for ten years now. And I have literally traveled the world doing it. I have clients printing from fine art, to due-sub — dye-sub from koozies to clothing to Chromaluxe — to vehicle wrappers and work-a-day sign shops to billboard printers to everywhere in between, and every single one of them called me because they were doing exactly what you just described, and were not happy with the results.

One place, in New jersey, the pressroom foreman was so sure upon my arrival that his way (your way) was better, that I damn near thought he was going to punch me rather than let me at the RIP computer.

When I left, he sheepishly apologized.

One client had an HP9000S, and an old Seiko Color Painter 64S. Same basic machine, but they did not print exactly identically. They printed art reproductions that they sold to hotels and the like. They had a catalogue of hundreds of prints, and they had painstakingly, over a period of years, created a duplicate set of every single one to print on the HP so that they would match the Seiko.

Tons and tons and tons of painstaking -- unnecessary -- work, and of course even then the final result wasn’t exact.

I came in, spent one day profiling both machines and when I was done they matched exactly; the client then never had to alter another image for print, and they used those profiles until they got rid of the machines.

And I’ll point out that saying I “bend the printer to my will” indicates a pretty basic misunderstanding of the process. See, any printer has capabilities. What I do isn’t to “bend the printer to my will”, it’s to first create a machine state for that printer, using its built-in inks and features, and whatever tools I’m given by the RIP, to get every bit of that capability on the particular media and for the particular end effect the client desires.

That’s not bending it to my will, that’s getting every bit of the capability out of the printer the client paid for when they bought the thing. And what you’re also missing is that I only have to do that once. Once it’s done, it’s valid for as long as they run that media in that machine. Then once the machine state is made, I make a characterization — an ICC profile — that describes the colors that machine produces in that state. And as long as the machine is in that state, that ICC profile is valid as well.

Both manage to get the job done but mine leaves time for smelling roses and riding horses. Yours does not.

Well, I’ve seen a lot of places doing it your way, Bob, and they seem to have a lot more time for doing all that, or for chasing chicks and drinking whiskey, or for running more jobs and making more money, after I’m done.

My way: I come in, I profile each of your machines on each of your media. Depending on the machines, I typically do 4-5 profiles per day. I also profile your monitors, set up your color workflow, show you how to accurately create and print spot colors, hold a classroom presentation for all your people on what color management is and how to use it, and lastly every single person gets my business card and cell phone number, and an admonition that if anything doesn’t work exactly as I say, to call me. So when I leave, you have absolute confidence that you get the best that each of your printers can possibly give.

First time.

Every time.

Every media.

And if I don’t do what I said, well, I’ve had this guarantee on my website since day one…

Correct Color Guarantee

…and I’ve never not been paid yet.

You know, I’ll just add that several times now you’ve alluded to the fact that “my way” — which honestly isn’t “my way” at all, but simply how this was actually designed to work done correctly— is some sort of Rube Goldbergian attempt at overcomplicating a relatively easy process. And, frankly, what that says to me is that — despite your protestations to the contrary — you simply don’t understand the process.

If you do, you’d understand that what you’re doing here is the equivalent of arguing against the sunrise.

And of course at this point you’ll feel compelled to get in the last word, and I’ll be glad to let you.

I’m all done arguing the obvious.

However, what I would suggest is that rather than posting some words on a message board, if you’re so absolutely sure you’re right…

..take me up on my guarantee.


Brink,

The "Truth" is somewhere in between. If you you have no profile, you will need to print spot colors till you figure out which RGB or CMYK colors cause the respective colors to fire solid spots as desired. If you have a profile set for a particular media, you will have to do the same thing. It would just be a different combination for each. No one will be able to answer your question with any certainty. What makes it happen for them will not apply to you unless you are using the same rip, profile, printer and inkset that they are using.

Well, no.

Here’s The Truth:

The Truth is that what a RIP does is convert computer pixels into printing dots.

And it does this using information in a profile. So in this business, profiles are everything. Profiles are what defines how your printer prints.

Basically what happens is that regardless of what type of image you send a RIP — any RIP — the RIP makes it into a tiff before it prints it. It then goes through the tiff, pixel by pixel, and takes the L*a*b* value of each pixel as represented in the incoming color space — which is either the space in which the file was created, or the assumed incoming color space, and looks for the closest color match in the outgoing color space — which is the printer profile.

The printer profile.

Not the printer.

The RIP has no idea what the printer is actually printing. All it knows is the profile.

(The only exception to this rule would be if you were doing straight pass-through CMYK -- "all profiles off" -- with no tagged or assumed incoming ICC, and no directed outgoing ICC. And I’ve sure been plenty of places where they did that, and it actually can work ‘okay’ on most raster images, as long as “pleasing color” is all you’re after. But good luck hitting spot colors that way, or doing any kind of remotely color-critical work.

It's also important to understand that even in this case, “no profiles” means no ICC profiles, not no media profiles. The media profile that describes the machine state has always got to be used. The RIP simply has to describe the basic mechanics of running the printer, always.)

So, in order to get the best out of your printer, every media, first print, every time, two things have to happen:

First is that your profiles have to describe the mechanics of how your machine prints to the RIP in its best possible configuration. If they do, then you’ll get every bit of capability out of that printer on every print with which you use that profile.

If they don’t, you won’t.

Second is that then the characterization — ICC profile — has to actually represent the colors the printer actually prints in that state.

Most don’t, of course. And the bottom line is that by whatever measure the profile is off what the printer actually prints, that’s how much the printer is going to be off in printing from that profile.

And that right there is the single reason for most color confusion in the industry.

So, understanding that the equation of L*a*b* value in incoming space to L*a*b* value in outgoing space is the heart of digital printing..

And it is, whether Bob likes it or not.

And bottom line is you can either define your printer with a profile to get every bit of its capability, and accurately so that you mathematically do that equation first time, every time.

Or you can print test swatches and chase it around until you think you’ve got it in the — most likely — not jobsite accurate environment in your pressroom.

Yeah, either way you’ll get there.

But why farm with a stick when you’ve got a tractor sitting right there?

Oh, and finally…

Really? That was around the same time that I was an MTS at HP labs. Dealing with much the same sort of stuff, just a taste more advanced and a lot more intense.

There you go again, Bob.

All I said was that I was standing in a room at Blanks with some clients in 1980. You have no idea what my job was, how advanced it was, or how intense it was.

Now, fact is that back then, I was in very high-end commercial litho. My clients were some of the top design firms and ad agencies in Dallas. And also back then, Dallas was awash in money, and awash in young talented people out to build their books and make their mark and soak up some of that money. With every project, we looked to stretch the bounds of the possible. And the stakes of every project were enormous.

HP at the time? Seven years before they introduced their first color inkjet?

Now mind you I don’t know for certain, but I’m just guessing that it didn’t even come close.

 

[Gino]

I know the water is cold, but how deep is it ?? ​

 

[Andy D]

If I'm being truthful, I fall somewhere in the middle of what Color Correct says and what Bob might be saying
(Bob goes out of his way to use the most abstract euphemism, so much so, I never know WTF his point is, and I honestly think he does it just to p*ss me off)

Back in the day when I was only a wee fancifull lad, my first job was was at my families custom photo processing business, and much of my time was taken up
calibrating the color analyzer and densitometer. The rub was, nobody wanted color realistic photos, they always went nuts for the bright, vivid, over contrast images...
which is why we switched from the color accurate Kodak photo paper and chemicals, to the hyper vivid Fuji photo paper and chemicals.

Fast forward 31 years.. Same shinola different millennium. Most of our customers are corporations with brand identities that have PMS colors specked out.
Many of them share the same PMS numbers, but I have print them using different CMYK values, because one customer thought the PMS 185 (for example)
was too "orangey" even though the eye1 and everyone else thought it was spot on ( <--- color pun). Unfortunately, our customer's color perception is our reality.
What I'm trying to say, even the best profile might only get you 95% there, you will always need to have the eye and knowledge to finetune.

That being said, you can only go so far on those prepackaged profiles, anyone that is serious about wide and grand format printing, needs to know how to
build their own profiles. The prepackaged profile may be fine for the Mom and Pop banner shop, but when you get into backlit corporate images, or printing on multiple
substrates using multiple printers & have to match multiple spot colors, you can't half @ss it.

 

[WCSign]

There is a whole lot of writing in here and I never saw the answer. I will tell you that I had a bad cartridge of LM and it ran the line dry while still reading full. I called roland and asked this same question so that I could run a block of a certain swatch to refill the line without doing a cleaning process and wasting other ink. They had no answer. So I went with what made me notice that I had a problem.. it was grays looking green.

I printed about 3 feet of gray gradients over and over and voila, I had a perfect color again and didnt have to waste hella ink doing cleans to refill the lines

after that I got the cartridge replaced free

 

[ChaseO]

"And as far as CMYK being all you need. Maybe that’s true. Until you need to print Pantone 021, or Home Depot Orange, or AT&T Orange."

Correct Color, for some reason I couldn't quote your post when you said this, but I have a question. I run a CMYK Roland, and am a stickler for color, and realize that there are some colors I can't hit. Brighter oranges are one of those colors. I'm about to purchase a new Roland, and having no experience with a 6 color set up, will the Lc and Lm make hitting these oranges any better? I'm also looking forward to the Lk color as I hate green/blue/pink shades in my grays.

Also, I talked to a guy who preferred to design in RGB as opposed to CMYK. Any thoughts?

 

[Correct Color]

There is a whole lot of writing in here and I never saw the answer.

Again, the answer is ink splits. They are written into the machine-state description of every profile of every printer that uses more than one ink per channel.

And they are written based on the profiling philosophy of whoever it was that wrote them. There's no set point or one-size fits all. So there's no way to say from a distance what they might be in any particular profile.

ChaseO,

No, light cyan and light magenta do not increase gamut. Their sole purpose is to reduce graininess. And yes, they do still very much make a difference. Even at a 3 picoliter dot, in highlights to half tones, the difference at close viewing ranges is noticeable. Might not matter on a banner, but on Point Of Purchase and vehicle wraps, that can be a big deal.

Since your new Roland and your old Roland use the same basic darks, you'll wind up with the same basic gamut. Depending, of course, on profiles.

One thing I should point out, though: Just because a machine has light black doesn't mean it will use it correctly. The ink splits of the machine-state profiles and then the black generation of the ICC must be set correctly to take advantage of it, or it might as well not even be there.

And as of yet, I haven't seen a single Versaworks profile where this is the case. And, since Versaworks does not allow a profiler to adjust ink splits, if you want to take full advantage, you're going to need another RIP.

Andy,

Actually, since I paid my Merchent Member fee and am allowed to throw a few over the plate now, I'm not suggesting anyone learn how to profile. Learning to profile to the level I'm talking about here can't be done in a two-hour webinar. It takes years. And then it takes doing it every day to keep the knowledge fresh and stay good at it.

What I'm saying though is that done to the level I'm describing, there is never any need to run anything more than once.

What I'm saying is they should hire me to come do their color.

Color By Correct Color.

Best print.

First time.

Every time.

(Edited to add: Anyone who just says "RGB" or "CMYK" isn't worth listening to.)

 

[Andy D]

There is a whole lot of writing in here and I never saw the answer. I will tell you that I had a bad cartridge of LM and it ran the line dry while still reading full.

Wait, What? Are you saying that we should answer the question and not start our own personal tirade?
What fun would that be?

 

[ChaseO]

And as of yet, I haven't seen a single Versaworks profile where this is the case. And, since Versaworks does not allow a profiler to adjust ink splits, if you want to take full advantage, you're going to need another RIP.

Very good info, but unfortunate since I have learned to use Versaworks solely, and am very comfortable with it.

 

[Brian27]

I was honestly wondering why this thread kept getting so many replies but now that I took the time to skim through it I finally realize why. :ROFLMAO:

 

[Esmond]

So is my color gamut wider with light cyan and light magenta? Whats the benefit of a six color? I have a roland soljet 545 ex....6color.... how do you change it back to a 4 color?

Hi there, just checking if you eventually did change to just a 4 colour set up? I recently purchased a second hand sc545 & it has just the CMYK printheads, but my reds are coming through as 'orange'. What do I do to correct this?

 

[Bly]

Light inks are a patch to compensate for large droplet size.
Variable droplet heads with a small droplet size don't need light inks.
6 ink printers also use a fair bit more ink than 4 colour.

 

[ddarlak]

Although I firmly believe that necroposting should get you banned for a considerable amount of time, when searching for an answer about light cyan I found this gem and the lashing that bob took was worth digging up this treasure from the graveyard.

my question went unanswered but my day was fulfilled.