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Onyx 12 Profile help

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jason91

New Member
So I've been messing with onyx 12. I have a cmyklclm printer that I want to change the the lc and lm channels to print spot colors like green and orange....Ive looked for profiles on onyx website, and all over the net, but no luck....
My problem is I can create a new media in onyx media manager to get it to work, but the cmyk colors are off horribly because I don't have a barbieri spectro pad to calibrate the colors.
Ive tried to edit an existing 6 color media profile (cmyklclm) but the profile wont let me change ink config..Or if I edit a 4 color (cmyk) profile I can create the two spot colors, but when I go to job editor it will only allow me to rip and print the separations or greyscale....the color option is greyed out?? Any ideas what I can do.. Thanks for any help
 
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jason91

New Member
I appreciate the help, but I don't think this is going to work.... I'm trying to replace the whole lc lm channel...not just a replacing a specific cmyk color. you cant even select the lc lm channels in those sections, you can only replace a color value in cymk... The ink config will be cmyk ss (cmyk spot spot) not cyklclm....so when I tell the machine to print only spot 1 it will print only the channel that had lc in it ....and spot 2 will print the lc channel...
 
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ColorCrest

All around shop helper.
Just curious,

You say you want a spot color or two driven by your special method. How will those colors be any different or better than what the printer or RIP can already accomplish?
 
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Joe House

Sign Equipment Technician
I think first off, if you don't have a spectrophotometer to create profiles, you're fighting a losing battle. Secondly, I doubt that the driver for this printer will support CMYK +NN channels - I'm not sure on this as I've never tried it before, but I would get the hang of creating profiles with your CMYKcm printer before adding the complication of 2 spot channels. IMHO
 
papabud

papabud

Lone Wolf
your cmyk mix will always be wrong. your machine wants and needs to use the lc lm colors to build your cmyk color.
you have to find out if your machine even can support special ink colors. the rip can be forced to do anything you want. the machine will be where your bigger problem is.
and then once everything is set up, you will need to color calibrate your cmyk some how. or it will never be correct.
 
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jason91

New Member
Its just that I had a 4 color cmyk printer that prints blacks and colors fine... I'm sure I could get my 6 color printer to print to print those channels like that, without the lc and lm channel printing.. Then I could free up those 2 channels to print different inks, maybe a more vibrant orange (O) or green (G) or even a light black for my greys... Its been done, I've seen it, but it was on a CMYKcmOG 8 color printer...just trying to figure out how to make it happen on a 6 color. lclm is basically useless, my machine barely uses it..
 
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ColorCrest

All around shop helper.
Your 6-color machine should be using the two light colors at near the same rate as the other four colors unless you produce an unusual amount of work with not much variety or the machine is not at all profiled correctly.

As a metric, shops that specialize in printing only photographs usually use slightly more light inks than signs shops. Aqueous fine art printers swear they use much more light ink than the darker inks. I would be curious to learn what suppliers show as proof over time in their shipping history.
 
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Joe House

Sign Equipment Technician
ColorCrest said:
I would be curious to learn what suppliers show as proof over time in their shipping history.
Click to expand...
Here's how it broke down last year for our Roland ESL4 inks. Just so you understand us, most of our customers have their printers set up as 7 color, but some are CMYKx2. Our primary customer base is the sign industry, but we cross over into a few other markets as well.

Black 13%
Cyan 7%
Magenta 10%
Yellow 15%
Light Cyan 13%
Light Magenta 19%
Light Black 15%
 
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jason91

New Member
ColorCrest said:
Your 6-color machine should be using the two light colors at near the same rate as the other four colors unless you produce an unusual amount of work with not much variety or the machine is not at all profiled correctly.

As a metric, shops that specialize in printing only photographs usually use slightly more light inks than signs shops. Aqueous fine art printers swear they use much more light ink than the darker inks. I would be curious to learn what suppliers show as proof over time in their shipping history.
Click to expand...

No where close on my printer.... I have a roland soljet 545ex. I print 1080x1080 3m 1j180 CMYKcm profile.... as a rough estimate in the past year I've printed probably 7-8 liters of black , 6-7 liters of magenta, cyan and yellow, and I still haven't print a full liter of lc or lm???
 
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Andy_warp

New Member
The reason less light inks are used is that you will run into over inking.
Profiling without a spectro? You're cooked.

You need that at the very least just to calibrate. You can't build a profile with your ink gamut missing chunks (lc lm) without linearizing with a measurement device.
Your density ramps will be incomplete.

Also, the inks may NEVER print right as they were probably individually formulated to take the light inks into account.

One such instance could be the heavy colors have less dye or pigment for runability since the light inks can pick up the slack in your ink's color gamut.
 
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