Question about sp540v

[designflow]

I just bought a used sp540v and I paid 8k for the machine and a cold laminator. I got the printer to work with my flexi but the colors are off they are printing really dark, I did change some profiles but still laying down a lot of ink. I have versaworks that came with the printer but I can't seem to make it talk to the printer.
My question is if I get versaworks to work will the printing be better quality and more correct color matching?

 

[trimitbyrich]

IT always prints darker than it appears on your screen, wheather its in Flexi, Photoshop, or you use Versaworks. We have the same machine and we usually import the file into Photoshop if its a raster image, Illustrator if it's a vector, and do an image adjustment by setting the brightness up by 50, this seems to do the job pretty well for us and I'm sure you can make the same adjustments in Flexi. Another trick is to set the brightness of your screen down to match the output of your printer, then you'd know how to adjust it by eye. The perfect way to fix it would be a color matching system which is expensive, in fact if anyone has a information on an inexpensive color matching sytem I'd sure like to know myself.

 

[designflow]

Do you find it hard to color match your vector files? I have a versaworks color chart from an out side source and now im trying to print one for my self to see how the colors match up to the one i already had printed. I know the one I have was printed on a roland 740, does the color chart change because I have a 540?? Just wondering cause I have done jobs for a could clients and I will need to recreate those same images...

So every vector image or regular photo, you brighten the image by 50 everytime or do you run a sample to see which prints best?

sorry to be asking so many questions Im just uncomfortable paying the full 8k if I can not get better quality prints...

 

[J Hill Designs]

8k for machine + laminator is a good deal - printing dark is not a printer problem, its a profile problem...the printer works fine...

 

[Bigdawg]

Versaworks and profiling is the biggest part of what you need. If you got a laminator and working printer for 8k, you might want to consider investing in having someone come out to your shop and get things talking so you can use Versaworks. Even the generic profiles will get you closer to the colors you are looking.

Ideally yes - you want to profile your whole work flow so what you see on the screen is what you get out of your printer. My experience has been - and we use an i1 system... is that these dang flat panel screens don't have consistent color top to bottom so I don't profile the monitor.

Cutting the brightness on your monitor and messing with colors intensity is a hit and miss proposition. If you take the time to get the color right in the beginning, then that would be the way to go.

 

[jfiscus]

I would start with a Pantone Color chart & see how that prints on each material/profile. Then you have to adjust the profile so that it matches the Pantone-to-Process output colors better. I find that using Flexi uses a lot more ink than Versaworks does, and I get truer-to-screen output from Versaworks also, although it prints a little bit slower than Flexi.