wsgraphix

I apologize for jumping in with all kinds of questions but am at my wits end...

does anyone happen to know any tricks to get a good quality color out of the machine? We are using corel x3, and printing direct from it not using the ekprint studio.

what shows on screen is good, what comes out is pretty nasty looking, we are pretty experience with digital output and color correcting etc beings that we do large format printing in house also

what i have noticed is that everything comes out about 4 times darker than the screen shows, blues look more like purple...

everything just looks flat out washed out....am i missing something, or is my expectation of quality too much for this machine?

 

Reply With Quote

zoom_monster

There are many options for color management in corel as well as color spaces. On top of that, Corel will use diferent rules for Vector and Raster graphics. For this reason, I usually just use EK or print out of Photoshop. Using the wrong colorspace or pantone pallete will give wildly different results(this is true for any printer). First thing I would do is to go ahead and export as TIF non aliased at 200-300 dpi and notice what difference you see. Because particular driver settings will vary the saturation, you will need to get your bearings by doing some test prints, to see how the translation goes and adjust from there.

 

Reply With Quote

23spiderman

I had this experience using Corel X4. I ALWAYS export my files to a tiff at 300dpi and print through the Eukon RIP. The end result still comes out darker, but the colors are more accurate. Many times the color on your screen will not look like the shirt unless you calibrate your monitor with the printer. Try printing some color gamuts using different brightness settings until you get the desired look. Then use those values on future jobs.

 

Reply With Quote

wsgraphix

i am not new to color calibration, nor building my own color profiles

i have tried everything in the book and just have come to realize the only conclusion is that the technology is just not there yet.

was it a huge waste of money, you betcha

will i keep trying to get it to live up to our quality standards, for now yes

i have tried the Tiff route, better but still very poor in the end, i have finally talked to tech support and been going through the machine fixing issues with it that keep popping up, our large format printers never have issues and didn't cost all that much more, so it is just a head scratcher as i shrug my shoulders

but "training" will fix all my issues i am told repeatedly... ..... all my other machines the techs come here, but they want me to train on a machine that i will never see again in california.....

 

Reply With Quote

23spiderman

Quote: Originally Posted by wsgraphix i am not new to color calibration, nor building my own color profiles i have tried everything in the book and just have come to realize the only conclusion is that the technology is just not there yet. was it a huge waste of money, you betcha will i keep trying to get it to live up to our quality standards, for now yes i have tried the Tiff route, better but still very poor in the end, i have finally talked to tech support and been going through the machine fixing issues with it that keep popping up, our large format printers never have issues and didn't cost all that much more, so it is just a head scratcher as i shrug my shoulders but "training" will fix all my issues i am told repeatedly... ..... all my other machines the techs come here, but they want me to train on a machine that i will never see again in california.....

Sorry for your problems. I get the same bright colors on my machine that I saw in Calif. during my training. I really don't know anything about color profiles, but have had to learn by trial and error, and by using the suggestions on these forums. Some users swear by using Photoshop for more realistic color output, but since I already have Corel, Anajet said to keep using it. I wish I could be more help.

 

Reply With Quote