Proof trouble. (not matching certain colors)

Starr19

Member
Hello,
I have an Epson 9600 (dye) Proofer with the Agfa QMS interface. My pictures look great and MOST colors are the same on the press, but the few colors that are off are way off. My question is why are some colors so off? I just proofed cmyk versions of some pms colors.. Pantone violet came out more to the blue side but other purples came out looking darker purple. I’m really confused, I have done all the cleaning, and calibrating options and everything seems to be working fine. Any suggestions to were I should be looking, or is this and old piece of crap and I will never match these colors?

Thanks
 
Re: Proof trouble. (not matching certain colors)

From what I have heard some printers just cannot print some colors. For example, we have an HP5542 (we use for low-budget clients) that will never match certain browns that we send to it. I have no idea why this though, sorry.
 
Re: Proof trouble. (not matching certain colors)

usually this is a calibration problem. You dont see it in pictures because they are so busy. But flat tints are off

Get you inkjet in control then build profiles
 
Re: Proof trouble. (not matching certain colors)

Gary, it is more than likely the inkjet setup. By that i mean the Linearization and profile of the inkjet as seen or used through your proofing print system. Some proofing or printing sotewares are really good at identifying color, gamut, and seting ink limits per channel,some are not .
If you have a tech rep for this system, they should be the ones to address your concerns.
 
Proof trouble. (not matching certain colors)

If you're happy with your photo images, you're OK - you can calibrate as much as you want, but cmyk won't ACCURATELY reproduce spot color. Look at a pantone sample book to see what I mean - it will show the spot ink with the cmyk equivalent next to it - they don't really look exactly the same... Proofs for spot colors are usually "drawdowns" which is the actual spot ink printed on a little card & sent to the customer along with a regular proof to be looked at for content (and/or any 4/CP images that may also be in the art).
 
If you have an application like Chromix ColorThink you can enter the CIE L*a*b* numbers for your spot color and see where it plots compared to the gamut of your proofer or press based on an ICC profile of either. Then you'll know which spot colors you can or cannot proof/print.

best, gordo
 
Another suggestion would be switching your machine configuration to Ultrachrome inks for wider gamut instead of the 6-colour photo ink set. Just an idea. Other than that it's exactly what Gordo says about some colours being outside of your proofer's gamut (...thanks for the tip gordo, it's a good one).
 

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