Tried color matching, now nothing prints right

[Kerri]

Im in a pickle and use a roland XR 640. I tried fixing the color on a portrait being printed. Everything had a terrible red hue. I played with color settings inside illustrator/photoshop and the individual levels in versaworks.
I also did a medium cleaning of printheads A & B.

Then my coworker tried to print stuff that we usually print and now the color is so far off. He thinks I changed something in the print settings at this point I wouldnt know.
We tried going back and printing a preivous rip'd job from the other week to see how it prints and thats messed up as well.

If it helps I changed settings like preceptual vs relative colorimetric [in art app] and played with individual ink levels in versaworks.

My coworker also mentioned that one of the print heads needs to be replaced. I dont know if that will solve this. My printing knowledge is very low, I've been learning as I go.

Any help is appreciated, I feel like I'm flying blind and messed up the thing. I've attached pictures to show a print compared to what its supposed to be.

 

[FrankW]

How does the nozzle test looks like?

 

[Jim Hancock]

As FrankW asked, please post a nozzle test.
You need to set Versaworks setting back to your previous settings. It is never a good idea to mess with ink settings in the RIP, as that's where you will eventually end up, with a mess. I'm presuming you were making adjustments in the "Color Adjustment" tab in Versaworks. Profiles created in Versaworks, or in any RIP, are created with ink settings at their default neutral settings. If you change these settings, then you have altered the output of the RIP and your color is going to be off.
If everything was printing fine and then there was a sudden change in color, on both new and previously ripped files, it is most likely the printer itself, not the software. The best approach is to first insure the printer is printing correctly. So let's see a nozzle test print and go from there.

 

[Pauly]

Im not to familliar with versaworks, but where did you change the ink levels? in a media manager section or a job editor section?

 

[Kerri]

Thanks for your feedback, That's why I took pic of previous settings in my first post so I had a reference. We've been using the color adjustment tab for a few months every now and then.

I got a very faint nozzle test. Its like it is printing at half saturation?
Sorry about the glare.but its what we sent to our tech and it promptly got tossed. We're only using print head b. The tech set that up for us last time he came by and we're def looking to get head A replaced.

My coworker managed to find a work around. He has the printer do an overprint [i think thats what its called]. And it prints almost exactly the way it did before.
In meantime, its a temporary fix, I can't imagine that working long term.

As FrankW asked, please post a nozzle test.
You need to set Versaworks setting back to your previous settings. It is never a good idea to mess with ink settings in the RIP, as that's where you will eventually end up, with a mess. I'm presuming you were making adjustments in the "Color Adjustment" tab in Versaworks. Profiles created in Versaworks, or in any RIP, are created with ink settings at their default neutral settings. If you change these settings, then you have altered the output of the RIP and your color is going to be off.
If everything was printing fine and then there was a sudden change in color, on both new and previously ripped files, it is most likely the printer itself, not the software. The best approach is to first insure the printer is printing correctly. So let's see a nozzle test print and go from there.

As FrankW asked, please post a nozzle test.
You need to set Versaworks setting back to your previous settings. It is never a good idea to mess with ink settings in the RIP, as that's where you will eventually end up, with a mess. I'm presuming you were making adjustments in the "Color Adjustment" tab in Versaworks. Profiles created in Versaworks, or in any RIP, are created with ink settings at their default neutral settings. If you change these settings, then you have altered the output of the RIP and your color is going to be off.
If everything was printing fine and then there was a sudden change in color, on both new and previously ripped files, it is most likely the printer itself, not the software. The best approach is to first insure the printer is printing correctly. So let's see a nozzle test print and go from there.

 

[DPD]

There is a color difference between perceptual and relative colormetric. I'm not familiar with the RIP you are using so best I can say is if you changed between perceptual and something else then you're RIP is possible using the embedded profile? Just a guess but as someone else has said you should probably reset to default settings.

 

[Jim Hancock]

It would have been very useful to know this in the beginning of this thread. In troubleshooting, we need ALL the info we can get...

It would make sense you are having color issues running 1 print head. The profiles are designed with 2 heads being used. So doing an overprint with 1 head would give the same results as no overprint with 2 heads.

I would be curious to know what the tech did to have you running with 1 head. Please enlighten us.