s80600 / onyx thrive 19 - color shift on reprint

[Signed Out]

Having an issue, printer is not outputting same colors on reprint. Trying to reprint a wrap panel, was originally printed 1 week ago. When trying to reprint (not re-ripping) the gray colors are all off, a much "cooler" print (see pic). I've tried everything I can think of, checked settings, re-ripped the file, re-saved, checked color modes.. Still not printing correct.
So I've also tested some other, non-related print files and they seem to still be printing correctly.
Only thing I can think of is this "troubled" file has lots of clipping masks and transparencies in it. The clipping masks are large and make the files hard to save in anything but 1/10th scale.. but we have printed this wrap a dozen or so times and not run into this color shift issue, and it's the same files. But the way that the red doesn't seem to shift and the gray areas are where most of the clipping masks are has me wondering? We test printed another common print job that has a gray gradient similar colors as the "troubled" print and it prints dead on.
Employee who runs the printer is stumped, says no settings have been changed on printer or in rip and we can not figure this out.

Any suggestions?

 

[P Wagner]

No pics attached

 

[Signed Out]

No pics attached

pic added, thanks.

 

[Signed Out]

Are there any settings in onyx or on the printer that could be causing this? Because reprinting from the rip archive causes the shift, and so does re-ripping. I've also realized now that it's every panel from this wrap is printing wrong now. It seems even the reds have shifted slightly. So either a setting has changed, or something wrong with the printer? Nozzle prints are perfect, not a single missing nozzle. Named spot colors and pantones spots are printing perfectly too still.

 

[AllSignsTyler]

Any ideas? Still stumped. Spoke with onyx, reinstalled rip, reinstalled profiles, they couldn't figure anything out. On the phone with epson now they have no clue either so far.

 

[P Wagner]

The large gray area is about a 3 dE00 shift, which is particularly visible in gray tones, even more than other hues

 

[Signed Out]

The large gray area is about a 3 dE00 shift, which is particularly visible in gray tones, even more than other hues

I have no idea what that means, tried googling 3 de00 shift, didn't help. I'm guessing it's bad. Any idea how to fix it or why these colors suddenly print this much differently a week ago?

 

[Signed Out]

13 years, never had a color shift issue before. I've never created a profile, only download them from 3M and Oracal, and used to use roland profiles when I had a roland. Onyx says the next step is to go buy a i1 and adjust the profile so the new output matches what the profile used to look like.
I just don't see how this could help? Why should all my "canned" profiles have suddenly broken? And I've already unistalled and reinstalled 3M profiles today to rule out possibility it was corrupted.. same results.
Maybe it's something with the printer? But spot colors print perfect and so do the onyx test prints.

 

[V. V.]

3 dE00 shift

Way more I presume.

Any idea how to fix it or why these colors suddenly print this much differently a week ago?

R u sure that there is no any single printing environment parameter has been changed since then?
Ink series/batch?
Vinyl roll/series/brand?
Print modes, ICCs?
Heaters/dryers settings?
Printheads/feed adjustment?

in anything but 1/10th scale..

100% wrong approach. Resampling can cause such shifts easily. 1:1 scale is the only way to go.

 

[Signed Out]

Way more I presume.


R u sure that there is no any single printing environment parameter has been changed since then?
Ink series/batch?
Vinyl roll/series/brand?
Print modes, ICCs?
Heaters/dryers settings?
Printheads/feed adjustment?


100% wrong approach. Resampling can cause such shifts easily. 1:1 scale is the only way to go.

As to environments changing:
-I assume (business owner here) a couple ink carts have been swapped out, but always fresh oem ink- and also spot colors/pantones print correctly still.
-Same roll of vinyl being used as original 1 week old print - have also tried different vinyls and same results- Not that a shift in colors like this would be due to different white point or vinyl brand.
-print modes/icc- yes we dragged and dropped the original print job from rip archive into the print que, didn't reprocess the job and colors shifted. Then we tried everything else...
-heaters- yes never touch these. dont have a dryer.
-print heads/feed. All the same, nothing was changes, no banding or other issues, perfect nozzle test prints as always.

the 1/10th scale, yea not ideal but like I've said, we've done this same wrap (same files) a dozen times in the past 5 months. Never had an issue.

 

[Signed Out]

Bottom decal was printed a couple weeks ago, top one just printed. They look the same. This is the best example that I have a control sample of on hand and is similar grays. So why would this print the same and the wrap differently ? Same profile used.

 

[ColorCrest]

I have no idea what that means, tried googling 3 de00 shift, didn't help. I'm guessing it's bad.

Delta 3 is where the typical human can see a difference between 2 colors, typically when the two are side-by-side. Delta 6 is further and Delta 9 is even further of course. As P Wagner mentioned, grays are where people can readily see color differences and a good reason for color printers to be calibrated and maintained to a gray balance and to do so regularly. It's easy to see and judge trends (color shifts) without instruments by printing, and keeping for reference, known evaluation files routinely.

 

[DAVID MARSHALL]

Are both prints from exactly the same media? Have you changed inksets?

 

[ColorCrest]

Any idea how to fix it or why these colors suddenly print this much differently a week ago?

Normally, you would regularly hit the Onyx re-calibrate button to bring the machine back into linearization from when the mode and (factory / canned?) ICC output profile were created. However, it seems you don't have access to the hardware spectrophotometer to read print densities and colors. That's tantamount to a musician not having a tuning device. However, many musicians can tune by ear. Print operators might tune by eye using tweaks in the calibration curves of the RIP. Something nobody recommends in this day and age but it's certainly doable.

 

[Signed Out]

Delta 3 is where the typical human can see a difference between 2 colors, typically when the two are side-by-side. Delta 6 is further and Delta 9 is even further of course. As P Wagner mentioned, grays are where people can readily see color differences and a good reason for color printers to be calibrated and maintained to a gray balance and to do so regularly. It's easy to see and judge trends (color shifts) without instruments by printing, and keeping for reference, known evaluation files routinely.

Thanks for explaining delta 3.

I take it you are also suggesting to recalibrate the profile?

Could you or someone explain how this could help?

- I have a handful of manufacture profiles, they all (for the past 3 years with this printer/rip) print very similarly, some a little better than others. So we use the same, 3m sv480 profile downloaded from 3m for every vinyl, calendared, cast, matte, gloss, various brands. It always works, never have had a color shift until now.

- I don't even know it's an issue in the rip... but what I do know is spot colors are unaffected (which takes the profile/color management away, right) and so do onyx test prints. And also sample grays that I can compare to recent prints look the same (look at post #11). What does this mean? That some things print fine? But any reprinted(not re-ripped) file from this wrap has the colors all jacked up like this?

 

[Signed Out]

Are both prints from exactly the same media? Have you changed inksets?

Yes same roll of vinyl. Maybe an ink cart or 2 have been replaced (I don't personally run the printer) but always fresh oem ink.

 

[ColorCrest]

Nozzle prints are perfect, not a single missing nozzle.

You can only tell there are no missing nozzles but they are so narrow that you cannot be sure if they are delivering at 100%. Imagine the technical challenge for inkjet printers to consistently eject such fine dots in such fine patterns, width and length, to mix the proper amount of 4 or more colors to amount to neutral grays.

Relatively large swatches of grays make for easy visual evaluations.

 

[Signed Out]

You can only tell there are no missing nozzles but they are so narrow that you cannot be sure if they are delivering at 100%. Imagine the technical challenge for inkjet printers to consistently eject such fine dots in such fine patterns, width and length, to mix the proper amount of 4 or more colors to amount to neutral grays.

Relatively large swatches of grays make for easy visual evaluations.

Normally, you would regularly hit the Onyx re-calibrate button to bring the machine back into linearization from when the mode and (factory / canned?) ICC output profile were created. However, it seems you don't have access to the hardware spectrophotometer to read print densities and colors. That's tantamount to a musician not having a tuning device. However, many musicians can tune by ear. Print operators might tune by eye using tweaks in the calibration curves of the RIP. Something nobody recommends in this day and age but it's certainly doable.

How does recalibrating the profile jive with spot colors printing correctly and onyx test prints printing correctly?

 

[ColorCrest]

How does recalibrating the profile jive with spot colors printing correctly and onyx test prints printing correctly?

You may not be able to be absolutely sure the spot colors are the same as before unless you have a spectrophotometer. As for the Onyx test print, do you have an archived reference print using the same setup and material to judge the latest print against?

 

[Signed Out]

You may not be able to be absolutely sure the spot colors are the same as before unless you have a spectrophotometer. As for the Onyx test print, do you have an archived reference print using the same setup and material to judge the latest print against?

I don't have onyx test prints to compare. But I have these spot color charts we printed about a month ago. I'm holding those up to what I printed 2 minutes ago. All of these spot colors, which are mostly pantones, look exactly the same to me.