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Rasterlink profiles for ES3 inks

petesign

New Member
Having some hard times matching colors with my eco-solvent inks on different materials, and of course, nobody has any profles for ES3 inks. Anyone else out there having this problem? My reds are just WAY off when I try to match Pantone colors.
 

Rooster

New Member
Reds are very difficult to hit at the best of times.

Try increasing the resolution and the number the of passes. It will greatly increase the available potion of the red gamut.

You're just not going to get "great" reds printing at 720 8 pass. Not with the ES3's anyhow.
 

petesign

New Member
I managed to get a nice red at 16 pass 1440 -- had to double pass it though. Maybe I should have gone with the 6 color inks, instead of the 4 - and not sure how wild I am about the eco solvents either. There just doesnt seem to be as much support out there for them.

I have just decided to cover my wall with color swatches of different "faux-pantone" prints and that will help me determine what settings I need to print on to get what color I want. 187C printed 2 passes on mine almost equals what 201c should look like.
 

Neil

New Member
You shouldn't have to print 2 passes 16 pass 1440, that's ridiculous.
Are the nozzles firing 100%?

I've been printing out of Rasterlink today and some of the profiles were laying down too much ink for me. I've also just printed full Pantone solid to process CMYK swatches using different profiles and settings and can say that they hit reds really well.

That being said, my inks are slightly different to yours. I'm using Mimaki eco-hs1 inks, which is kinda between their eco and ss21.

Maybe check that your file is coming in properly.
Send 1 strip of pantone CMYK colors from your sign program and compare the CMYK values in Rasterlink by hovering the mouse over the patches in "color edit/color replacement".
Make sure they're still CMYK and the numbers match the original formulae.

Print a swatch with the CMYK input profile turned off and compare it to one using WideMimaki CMYK. My preference is to use WideMimakiCMYK for better Pantone matching.

Have a look here, there's a good selection of Eco profiles

http://dgsmimaki.com.au/pages/downloads/Raster/RLP Profiles.html
 

Rooster

New Member
1440 16 pass with a double strike is pretty darn slow. Although I print my canvas art prints at 1440 32 pass and the color is frickin awesome.

I find that a nice vibrant red is achievable with a 720x720 16 pass bi setting. You can push the printer harder to reach some better reds, but only a few clients I have are that demanding.

You should really look into a different RIP and some color management. Never mind how easy it becomes to get good color, with the cost savings on wasted media (and time) it pays for itself in short order.
 

petesign

New Member
thanks for the help guys. I am a little new to Rasterlink, I had Flexi before - and didnt have the same issues - Being a new company, I just can't lay down the cash for Flexi yet. So, whats the CMYK WideMimakiCMYK vs the other all about, if I send a file from Photoshop as a CMYK is interprets it from that - but if it's RGB the other? Honestly, I didnt even know that I had two CMYK input profiles in there already. I will try using both and see which I like better.

I was of the mindset that since I am printing CMYK, it would be best to design in CMYK vs. RGB.

With single pass on 3M IJ35 I am printing using the GPVC profile - and it seems like there's a lot of dithering, and some of the colors don't really match using the coated Pantone palette - if I double pass it, they are closer, and the dithering goes away. All nozzles are firing like they should - I'm printing using 4 colors instead of the 6 (or is it 7)... perhaps that has something to do with it?

Thanks again!
 

Neil

New Member
Have a look here
http://dgsmimaki.com.au/pages/tutorials/tutorials.html

They are really helpful tutorials on setting up and using Rasterlink.

The colouredit one should help you - it shows how you can make density adjustments and spot color replacements etc.
Also the condition management one is really helpful.
I didn't know you could do all this till I watched these vids...
 
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