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Lost my Color punch; To many Changes at once?

tomx1138

tomx1138

New Member
I just Switched/added flexi 8.1. for the production manager.
I design with ZARA pro 4, and I print to a Roland versacamm sp300, I use 11/10 inks (Changed inks 2 weeks ago) and was using color rip all was fine. I just added a kodak 1000i to the shop and wanted to use one production manager for all: hence the addition of flexi. I've played with it for a week and I am not happy with any of it, the rolands blues are light purple the reds are a dull pink I lost all the punch. On the kodak all the colors are slightly over saturated, and my vinyl cutter an old graphtec JX1130 won't cut, (I think its because there is no com 1 port on the set up). I've played with all the preset profiles that seemed appropriate to the materials I use (Arlon Gloss calender). My sales reps haven't helped much they got me closer but I'm not happy, I've fallen behind, luckily my customer haven't noticed the print quality yet. Thank god they're idiots. I feel I messed up bad by changing to much at once or I'm missing something simple. PLEASE HELP I'm loosing handfulls of hair.
 
tomx1138

tomx1138

New Member
Thanks to the 2 gentlemen that responded to my post, the cocktails helped. After hours of research I formulated a plan to address my problem on my own with my equipment and I'm back up and producing. I guess I should count myself lucky I didn't get my as# verbally handed to me by the superior beings of righteousness that lash out at the new and weak. Sad but this sarcasm will undoubtedly produce more rants than the need for positive assistance.
 
tomx1138

tomx1138

New Member
Your help is valued.

Yes I did, and it helped get more ink to the heads. (Sorry for not replying back on that). I was expecting more hints and input and when i got nothing I went into other modes of research and exploration. What I ended up doing was I replaced my 11/10 inks with the roland max inks, went back to using color rip on the Roland SP300, photoprint 3.0 for my Graphtec vinyl cutter. and using flexi for the Kodak. Because I had a customer with blue in there logo wanting it to be blue not puke violet. I Reset to last known good config.
Thought the use of the forums I relies ed I was given a cracked version of flexi with the kodak, I should have know, the price for the machine and software were to good to be true. I went on a long lunch and it was installed. I played with fexi alot and it performed weak on the roland, is it because of the crack? Every salesmen I have sells it and stuffed it down my throut and says I can't live without it. Is the authentic version going to perform better as I fantacise it should? I see about 50/50 in the forums.
 
high impact

high impact

New Member
Probably wasn't the brightest idea to call your customers idiots either especially when they google up signs101. LOL

BTW - WELCOME! You will do alright around here after you grow thicker skin. ;-)
 
tomx1138

tomx1138

New Member
I'm in the back woods here and most of them think google is what you where over your eyes on a motorcycle.
I have lots of callouses on the skin lol I dish it out only because I can take it.
 
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luggnut

luggnut

New Member
it is probaly not because your version of flexi is a crack... but it is possible. more than likely the profiles used in flexi. but there are lots of things it could be from your color settings.. rendering intents , but sometimes when i'm trying to get a true blue i have to use the library and pick a pantone color thats rendering intent is set to spot to get a good blue. i've found that if i chose a cmyk value it is not as vivid as a spot. now i know it is still being printed in cmyk but the results are very different. don't know the technical reasons behind that... except the rip sees it differently and processes it different.
 
rdm01

rdm01

New Member
Profiles, profiles, profiles! Although your color mode and rendering intent could
be the culprit, I am willing to bet that it is your profiles. If it is out of your
capability to create your own I suggest searching for some proven good
ones. You will be amazed at the difference a good profile will make!
 
tomx1138

tomx1138

New Member
Thanks Luggnut you brought something to the table that I can sink my teeth in! This evening, after I get my daily jobs out. I will experiment and get back to you.
 
tomx1138

tomx1138

New Member
Its out of my skill /and time in the day to learn profiling at this time. although after this curve ball it certainly jumps to the head of the list of new skills to acquire. I played with all the canned profiles in flexi and didn't come close to happiness. I looked at the roland site briefly, and it looked like they were only for versaworks, do they cross over effectively or is there a better hunting ground? I kind of glazed over profiles from my vendor maybe not a thoroughly as I should. Mainly because I didn't see a lot of improvement in my (this makes sence to me choices) I will re investigate with a new hope.
 
Bigdawg

Bigdawg

Just Me
You have to find the right profiles. I really think rdm01 nailed it. Roland does only support versaworks on their site and no - they don't cross over to Flexi (as far as I know).

Here's Arlon's profile page. Maybe that will help...
 
luggnut

luggnut

New Member
vendor profiles are all i have ever used and i get acceptable results... with that said i hope to be able to create my own in the future because all machines and enviroments differ and one profile will not fit all. but that being said the profile offered for my machine does get acceptable color ...there are some issues like blk not being totally black. color is a complex thing to get.. everything from working in rgb or cmyk to your color space settings adobe rgb or srgb. web coated swop... rendering intents absolute colormetric relative colormetric..
point is there is a lot to chew on. i use the adobe rgb color space and swop. i mostly work in rgb to not clip my colors before the rip ( which i learned here is the reason i get greenish yellows sometimes). i'm not saying i'm a expert just some things to try.
 
tomx1138

tomx1138

New Member
FANTASTIC!! YOU GUY'S ALL WERE A BIG HELP!! I am very weak in knowledge of color profiling. (I assUme, if I do 100% cyan it should print the same color on the ink package and same for magenta, yellow and black.) I will apply all your inputs tonight and let you know how it worked out sometime tomorrow.
Truly Thanks Again
TOM
 
high impact

high impact

New Member
Another thing to keep in mind is that all monitors do not reflect the colors accurately. You can have good printer profiles but they may not match your monitor profiles. Until you are able to profile your monitor print a cmyk color chart on all your materials and you can match colors physically then input those cmyk settings to print that exact color on that exact material regardless of what the monitor shows.
 
tomx1138

tomx1138

New Member
I just got around to installing new profiles and working back with flexi. I downloaded profiles from arlon and low and behold they tightened things up the best out of everything I tried so far, but its not like I hoped. The second thing that helped was printing color charts on the media and fudging it that way. (Thanks High Impact) I was aware of the lack of calibration from screen to output but I wasn't hip on how to compensate with any accuracy. I still have some more experimentation time and ideas/tweeks to ponder, its hard trying to balance the time between the jobs/work to the major family needs this time of year. The two days after xmas are free for me to correct my Issues.
Thanks again for all your Input and Merry Christmas
TOM
 
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