"These new large format machines self color calibrate"....oh yeah?

[WildBlueYonder]

Hi Print Planet,

New member here, but been around the WBY for awhile.

The sales guys from some of the large format manufacturers (HP, Roland) say "These new large format machines don't need color calibrating, they do it automatically".

I'm a doubting Thomas.......if you want to produce quality work for corporations and designers, I think you need to setup proper print profiles and tests despite what the "sales types say".....

Just getting my feet wet with large format...

COMMENT?:

 

[graficworx]

You are quite right in regards to still needing correct color profiles. I have used many of HP's wide format printers, and they do have "on-board" color adjustments, or so they claim. From my experience, they have an optical sensor that tries to determine the type of paper, and what densities are best for that paper. Of course all papers are different, and even different batches of paper can have different characteristics. In the past, I did a test on several HP designjets, using a single PDF sent from various computers, operating systems, and programs. It's amazing how the same file can very. Your best bet is to have the correct ICC profile for the paper you are using, and to send a print job from a CMYK workflow. Sometimes they will RIP a PDF as RGB, and have drastically different results.

 

[M&M Displays]

Our HP Z6100 does a pretty good job of it. It's about 3 Delta E off if I remember correctly.

 

[Maximus323]

These systems are mostly designed to assure of repeatability through time. You will still need to set up a proper colour setup through colour management anyway. What they do very well is modify the ink values through internal calibration to get consistent results over time. One problem though is that if you are missing too many jets from a single colour, the printer might refuse to print because the colour might be too far off calibration.