Xerox 700 color matching difficulties

[jaywille]

It seems that our machine is not reproducing color accurately run to run even when only a day apart. This is especially true when running CMYK files. Files done in spot color are not as bad, and they are easier to correct with the spot color matcher if they are off. Does anyone have any suggestions or tricks on getting this thing to be a little more consistent? Thanks in advance

 

[Magnus]

We have a xerox 700 and using Xerox Freeflow RIP. We found it necessary to calibrate (linearize) at least once a day cuz of the otherwise inconsistent prints. With freeflow it only takes a couple of minutes..

 

[X33]

it could be many different things, either hw or sw related.

For starters, make sure your engine and RIP are always calibrated.

 

[jaywille]

We do calibrate daily and sometimes before each large run. An example of the problem we are having is the most recent one. We ran a proof after calibrating last week. When going back to run the job, we calibrate again, and run a small sample to check before running the job. The solid colors are nowhere close. To get the file to print correctly, I had to convert the greens in the file to spot and use spot on and scan to match the proof. Is this something I should expect to do on color match runs?

 

[X33]

Is this something I should expect to do on color match runs?

Not at all.

Seems that something is not the same in your workflow when you reprint jobs. Contact a Xerox Analyst if you can, someone needs to look at every step in your process to see where the difference is.

 

[jaywille]

Normally I would agree that workflow would be suspect, but this is reprinting the exact archived file with no changes made. We have contacted Xerox but they basically just say the calibration must not have been done correctly. Something else I didnt think of tho, it is possible that the person doing the calibration before the first run did a poor job scanning and lifted the lense or something along those lines. Unfortunately more than one person does the calibration and not everyone is as careful. I did the calibration several times trying to get the second run to look correct but if the proof was printed with a bad calibration that would throw everything off.

 

[X33]

do you have an spectrophotometer for calibration, or are you using colorcal?

 

[jaywille]

We are using the EFI ES-1000 spectrometer

 

[David Palmieri]

You may want to look into ORIS Press Matcher developed by CGS. ORIS Press Matcher offers a very simple user interface for color managing a digital device to a color standard such as GRACoL or SWOP. It can also be used to color manage a digital device to a custom color standard. The solution is most commonly used for color managing digital devices to offset printing standards or more importantly used for unifying color across multiple digital devices. The system uses an external spectrophotometer to measure multiple measurement targets off of the Xerox 700 to match the color to a desired state. In most cases depending on the target color space it is able to achieve an average delta e of 1. The solution can be used on Xerox devices ranging from the Xerox 700 all the way up to the iGen 3 & 4. It also expands out to all digital output devices from any manufacturer be it digital press technology or wide format devices. If your goal is accurate repeatable color ORIS Press Matcher is the answer.

As CGS is a preferred business partner of Xerox our solution is recommended and promoted by them. Xerox can also resell the solution. If you are interested in learning more about the ORIS Press Matcher product please contact me offline at [email protected] and I will be happy to put you in touch with one of our local CGS Sales Managers to assist you further.

Best regards,

David Palmieri

Director of Sales, Digital Print | USA
Director of Sales | Canada
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

CGS Publishing Technologies International, LLC
Email [email protected] | Web CGS
Address 100 North Sixth Street, Suite 308B | Minneapolis, MN 55403 | USA
Mobile +1 631 220 3707 | Fax +1 612 870 0063

 

[X33]

We are using the EFI ES-1000 spectrometer

still don't know what it could be.

Try this, print a Fiery PS Test Page after you calibrate on day 1.

Then print it again after you calibrate on day 2.

If you are calibrating correctly, they both should be very close if not identical.

 

[Digital Prepress Girl]

I had the same problem with our Xerox 700. Since most of our colors are converted to CMYK in InDesign we have to protect the colors in our Creo front end at the printer. That means entering in the builds for each color into Creo. We when protect the color before printing, it's in the colors tab in Creo. It is very close to the same every time now. We went back and forth with Xerox thinking it was a cruddy printer. It also has to do with calibrating. We run only 2 stocks really. So if we are using 100lb Silk Text we Calibrate on that. We also print a sheet out every morning and see if there is a difference between each day. If they are the same we don't worry. But if it's way off then we call Xerox. I feel your pain. We bought the printer in August and in the past 3 weeks have finally been running great.
My Xerox rep said that Freeflow and Fiery may not be able to protect CMYK. Good luck!

 

[Digital Prepress Girl]

Richtapia- The Xerox Tech would run different tests then send them someplace for color analysis to look at. They said the prints were withing specs. It really depends on what you select for calibration too when you go to print. Sometimes we have to select a different one than the last time we ran the same job. There is no rhyme or reason sometimes why the printer acts the way it does. We've had all the techs that we can out to figure out the Creo and the printer. Creo themselves do not have training on their front ends. Not all Creos are the same either. Our 7000 which is 3 years old has an older Creo that does not have all the capabilities as the new one. But the older one has less problems. I would press Xerox to do all they can. We did. We have monthly meetings with them to make sure they are doing what they should be since it's their printer.

 

[kslight]

Not using a 700...but for general workflow I calibrate all of our machines in the morning, and its not uncommon to again have to calibrate later in the day to match something printed previously. Sometimes I have found it to help to run a little on the machine every morning before calibrating...not a whole lot, just maybe 10-20 prints. But also depending on your climate...I find that the color on these machines are affected by several different variables...temperature, humidity, electricity, developer life, and stock. So obviously if you proof at 8am when your shop is maybe cooler, and then you run the job at 11am when all the machines are running and its warmer...it will look different. We are using Fiery front ends and a Creo.

What you might find useful also is only using one densitometer (if you have multiple machines that you are trying to keep similar)...we do this on our 2045 and 2060 as they both have Fierys, so we only hook up the densitometer to one of them and use it for both.

Unfortunately the reality of these machines (by Xerox or anybody else) is that they aren't perfect for color always. The color is usually sellable, and you should be able to reproduce the same job over and over again with only a small degree of variance, but an exact match is just not reasonable. I would make sure to communicate with your customers that same expectation so that they know what they are paying for too with the lower cost of printing digitally versus offset. We sell our color as "similar" and use proofs and samples to manage color for critical applications and we are more successful that way than if we tell the customer that we will dead match everything.