Roland SP-540V Fading issues

[thebirddog]

Hello everyone.. I work with a roland SP-540V wide format printer and i have noticed when printing files with graduations fading from 100% to 0% the fade is sudden and short and not as it looks on the visual on screen (longer and more fade)? I usually print from exported EPS and JPG files in CMYK. I use Versaworks to rip and print these files.. Is it better to print straight from the software to the printer and if so will this help my problem?

Any ideas and/or suggestions would be greatful thanx in kind.

james.

 

[Hotspur]

Smooth grads

The Issue is with the media profile & rip - not your file.
A quality rip should have a good profiling engine and a good set of stock profiles that do not show this effect - unfortunately it is a common issue.
You can recalibrate your profile to even the tonal response and if possible use 16 bit files and a rip that can process 16 bit files (many convert to 8 bit to process)
if you can't do either and Versaworks doesn't have a large profile library where you can try a different profile then there's not a lot you can do i'm afraid.

 

[rjssigns]

Another thing to try is the Blend tool in Illustrator. You can make flawless gradients and blends by using the Smooth Color option. My college instructor taught me that one. He said using the gradients that come with some software can cause issues at times.

 

[thebirddog]

many thanx guys.. i will give these options a go and try them out

 

[Solventinkjet]

+1 On profile settings and design techniques.

This can also be a print head issue. Sometimes when a head is going bad it will fail to print the variable dots and just print the largest one. I would do a 100% to 0% fade for each of the 4 colors. That way you can see if it is only happening in a specific color.

 

[iladi]

jpeg = compression, not so good for printing large gradients. a better way is to export as tiff. import the tiff in photoshop and add 1% to 2% noise to the image. your print will became much better.

 

[phototec]

jpeg = compression, not so good for printing large gradients. a better way is to export as tiff. import the tiff in photoshop and add 1% to 2% noise to the image. your print will became much better.

+1 for using TIFF files when printing gradients, I have also heard using the noise filter in PS will help.

 

[Wheeler]

Export the eps in rgb not cmyk

I know it is a cmyk printer but versaworks works better with a rgb exported file, If the file has a raster image in it use the Quality/color management/Pre-Press U.S..

As far as the Profile goes it just depends on what you are printing on..

Versaworks doesn't work very well with gradiants, Sometimes they have to be converted to .jpg or pdf files for them to work.

Use the Roland Color System Library for color matching.

They talk about this stuff on MyVersacamm.com forums, they have videos as well.