Xerox 700 colorcal calibration problem

[leegreen]

You can profile using the bustled RIP, you just need to get the EFI Color Profiler Suite.
The ES1000 is the dongle to active the software.

Download it from here, you will need to sign up an email address to login.
EFI - Drivers Download

You will need to profile the device as a 'Generic CMYK device' as the X 700 is not listed as a supported device at this time. You profile the 700 in a raw state, and embeds all the fiery setting, so you wont need to change your driver settings.

Could you post a picture of your results? I am getting woeful results from my profiles on the X700, I have used the ES 1000 on a few other machines here such as the Canon iPF 8100 (wide format inkjet) with great results.

[JasonSacks]

You want me to post pictures of my results now with color cal? Or with the ES 1000 once I get it? If it is with the ES-1000 it may take a month as I will have to buy a new one. I am getting decent results now that I am using the calibration from the plain paper (though my idea of decent may be different.)

I am realizing that the ES-1000 on ebay was a waste of $400. Without the cradle I can not calibrate it. I called x-rite and the es-1000 is calibrated for the specific tile. After spending the money for them to set it up with a new cradle, I might as well just buy a new one and know that it will work for sure rather than mess with this one.

[leegreen]

Results from the ES 1000

This is what my output is like with a profile made with the ES 1000 (see picture), top sheet is from a IT8.7/1 patch measurement with no adjustments, bottom sheet is the same profile with heavy adjustments to the DMAX to get an acceptable print. My Xerox tech are offering no assistance with the ES 1000, and EFI are yet to respond to my questions on their color forums..

I would not think I should have to do such adjustments to the dmax as getting all my media profiles to produce a similar print would be a week long event..

[JasonSacks]

From the photo the baby image looks dark, but that is just from the photo. Is that what matches your screen better? Is the match better in the photo or the solids?

[leegreen]

The top sheet which is dark does not match the supplied PDF (not even close). Photo and solids are printing with far too much cyan and little too much magenta..

[che.c]

I know this thread is based around the 700, but I maybe my experience with colour and a 250/260 might be of some help. I started off with grand ideals about calibrating for every different stock, coating and weight that we had and that lasted about a week. There was very little difference between the calibration sets.

Now the way I've got them set up is

• I picked my favourite profile (Colotech 220+) from the defaults.
• Turned CMYK Sim Off (I find this usually causes more problems than it solves)
• Tweaked the Dmax (that print looks like there's too much yellow? Take some yellow out. simple as that. Rinse and repeat for different jobs until you get a consistent result.)

And that's it. I use one media output profile (well, two, one looks at a coated calibration the other looks at an uncoated one) and do two colorcals - one for coated, one for uncoated.

I find this gives me a decent colour, and there's not too much upkeep trying to hold it there. Not exactly scientific, but then again, you're a printer - trust your eyes!

Might start to tweak the curves in the next while, but that's just being fussy, Dmax is enough to get you nearly there.

[leegreen]

• I picked my favourite profile (Colotech 220+) from the defaults.

I think this is my problem when creating media profiles...

The printer should be printing the swatches in a raw state. So outputting the swatches with a colortech profile is screwing with the IT8.7/3 target.

I will give your method a go today and try a few other options - such as 'colowise - off'

Thanks for your input.

[Craig]

I know this thread is based around the 700, but I maybe my experience with colour and a 250/260 might be of some help. I started off with grand ideals about calibrating for every different stock, coating and weight that we had and that lasted about a week. There was very little difference between the calibration sets.

Now the way I've got them set up is

• I picked my favourite profile (Colotech 220+) from the defaults.
• Turned CMYK Sim Off (I find this usually causes more problems than it solves)
• Tweaked the Dmax (that print looks like there's too much yellow? Take some yellow out. simple as that. Rinse and repeat for different jobs until you get a consistent result.)

And that's it. I use one media output profile (well, two, one looks at a coated calibration the other looks at an uncoated one) and do two colorcals - one for coated, one for uncoated.

I find this gives me a decent colour, and there's not too much upkeep trying to hold it there. Not exactly scientific, but then again, you're a printer - trust your eyes!

Might start to tweak the curves in the next while, but that's just being fussy, Dmax is enough to get you nearly there.

It's not scientific.... but what the hell it works for you!!! That's all that matters!

[leegreen]

I finally sorted out my issues when creating a profile for the Xerox 700

Turn off all 'expert color settings' - i was led to believe that EFI Color Profiler Suite embedded fiery settings when producing the swatches, which may be correct - however this did not produce the right results for me.

Quote from EFI support forum
"There is no need to choose anything if you are choosing the raw option when you are printing the patches from Color Profiler Suite to the Fiery. We already code the Fiery Job Properties so that the Raw printer state is automatically used regardless of the user defined settings."

However when I followed this instruction, the result of my profile was incorrect. The reason for the shotty profiles was so obvious in the end. The fiery was applying all the Expert Color settings to my swatches.

It has only taken a couple of weeks to get this machine printing correctly, hopefully smooth sailing from here when I profile the rest of my media.

[Craig]

There is a learning curve that seem to grow in length whenever we get a bigger box. I'm still finding out things after more than a year.