Can anyone me understand this?

[CES020]

We don't have a large format printer. We have a desktop dye sub printer and it all works just fine. We recently added a color laser printer to do some color laser transfers.

It's a simple process, just print on the special paper, press it on the heat press and it's done.

The printer is an Okidata printer, which is the brand people seem to have good luck with in this process.

Everything installed just fine, no errors.

When I go into Illustrator (or anything else), and go to print, it asks me to pick the PPD for the printer. One didn't come with the printer and I've spent 2 hours on the phone with tech support asking them for the PPD for that printer. Instead, it uses a default post script printer PPD. I go through all the settings I can see in Illustrator, on the output side of things, raster effects are at 300dpi, resolution is set to high, I can't see any issues with the settings at all.

However, when I print, the black prints fine. Every other color prints like it's using a halftone pattern. For example, the lime green I printed, has the halftone pattern in it and the dots are actually a dark blue dots. The gray has no added dot colors, but it does have the halftone pattern, it's just white dots (no ink). The dark blue I printed appears to have black dots in a halftone pattern.

Of course they blamed it on Illustrator, so I opened Word up at their request, printed 3 words, all different colors, got the exact same result.

I don't know anything about postscript stuff and I know very very little about the profiles and making this all work.

The left the tech support call not knowing anything at all more than when I called.


It also has a color correction utility program that you can open up and change color settings and save out the changes if needed. I don't think I need any of that for what I'm doing right now (it's not color critical), but I can't figure out how to stop the thing from half toning everything I print that's not black.

If I go to the actual printer and print test pages from the printer directly, they print beautifully, all color swatches in their tests. So the printer clearly prints just fine, but something is happening or something is set wrong that's messing with all solid colors except black.

Anyone got any ideas what I might look for? I've been working on this most all day and I can't find anything else to change and try.

Thanks!

 

[TammieH]

Printer Drivers? Maybe

Try updating them>

 

[CES020]

I've installed, removed, and reinstalled them about 1/2 a dozen times, some on my own and some guided by their tech support. They tell me it's set up correct.

Here's what it's doing. Sorry for the poor image, but I had to blow up a lower quality scan to get it to this size.

 

[bob]

Call them back, tell them either fix it immediately or send you another.

Tell them if they don't comply there will be lawyers and much ugliness. If they respond that they don't have the proper authority, demand to be connected to someone that does. Right now, no return calls, but right now. Don't take no for an answer.

If they can't fix it and won't send a replacement, return it to wherever you purchased it. If the seller balks look them straight in the eye and say it does not meet the 'fitness of merchantability' standards [legal term there] and you are prepared to sue them into next week if they refuse to comply.

It most likely is a software problem but it's their software problem, not yours. Sometimes you have to throw a temper tantrum or two before you get these sorts of things worked out.

 

[CES020]

Been working on it on and off last night and this morning. I know I am missing something.

I drew some rectangles in Photoshop and printed them and they seem to be far better than things printed from Illustrator. I even came back into illustrator and rasterized the graphics and printed and it still does the same thing.

I can't find any setting that is causing this or any setting that is different when printing from Photoshop and Illustrator, but clearly, they print differently.

I've tried everything I can find to try. It's a desktop printer, so no RIP's or anything fancy involved, just a normal laser color printer.

Any ideas on what's causing this?

 

[TyrantDesigner]

post script support for most laser printers is far and few between. My suggestion, just design in photoshop since laser printing tends to favor raster anyways ... you can avoid the issues you are coming up with. OR just export to a tif with lzw compression [size of a jpg, no loss in quality] and print from photoshop. The only time I get vector work to print on laser properly is when it's on a b/w laser and I don't involve any sort of middle tones.

either way really, the moire is going to be radically different just because of how everything has to think about converting vector to raster just to print.

 

[jfiscus]

Can you save as a PDF from Illustrator & print from the resulting PDF?
I try not to print directly from Illustrator, but I do not have a setup anything remotely close to yours.

The dot pattern looks like a standard 4-color process pattern, adding the dots to make up the final color (100% yellow, 20% pattern of cyan, etc) out of the 4 colors that the machine has. This machine uses 4-color process toners/inks, correct?

The only way I could see not having a dot pattern in the output would be to use a machine with specific spot colors for each color, like a Gerber Edge.

 

[Tim Aucoin]

What model Okidata printer is it? I have an Okidata laser and have no issues with it. Let me know the model number and let's see if it's the same as mine!

 

[Vinylman]

Printer problem

Does your print command look like this?

Your problem "MAY BE" in the original set up of the print mode in Illustrator.
You should demand that the OKIDATA support people walk you through the set up S L O W L Y! and double check every setting before agreeing to keep the printed. Otherwise bundle it up and return it.

Test the print quality while you have them on the phone with you.

Hope this helps.

 

[CES020]

Thanks for the replies. I saved as a PDF and printed it. Same thing. I saved as a TIF and printed from Photoshop, same thing.

It seems to print the test print from the printer beautifully. No dots, not nothing, smooth as silk.

I even thought it might be a problem with CS6, so I went back to CS5 and tried that and got a slightly different color, but same pattern.

It's just an Oki C330. Nothing amazing. This has GOT to be something simple I'm missing. I do a fair amount of dye sublimation work and I've never had this issue on the dye sub. I'm using the same type settings that I get great prints from using that process.

Here's what I see on that screen you showed.....

 

[Tim Aucoin]

I'll run some tests on my printer (it's also the C330) and let you know what I get. Stay tuned!

 

[CES020]

WOW! Thanks Tim, I appreciate that!

 

[Tim Aucoin]

Okay... hooked the printer up and ran a test... I'm getting solid colours. Do you mind sending me your file to try? Not that it makes a difference.... but I'm running Illustrator CS6 on a Mac. Send your file to me (tim@kkcalgary.com), and I'll try printing your file and see what I get. Here's the print dialogue I'm using (as compared to yours). Wondering if it might be a setting in another window (graphics, color management, etc...)??

 

[CES020]

Thanks Tim, file has been sent. I don't see anything in your screen shots I haven't tried. I'll try that combination though, and see if it helps.

Thanks-
Steve

 

[Techman]

if it does a test print correctly,, then your problem is most likely your software setup.

 

[Tim Aucoin]

Just to follow up... I also went directly to the OKI website and got the latest driver (version 2.0.0.0) for the printer... Did you go that route or use the disk that came with the printer? I never use the disks... they are the first thing to hit the garbage!! :Big Laugh From the looks of your screen shot, you are running Mac also?

 

[CES020]

Yes, the driver came from their site. Yes, I'm on a Mac. I had Lion at the time and they had some steps you had to take to get it to use Lion. I did all those, then I upgraded to Mountain Lion, and I've done all the required tasks to make that work, according to their site and their tech support.

I remembered that the files (all customer supplied) were RGB. I just thought I'd double check the colors and see what Pantone color they were close to. I have a script that does that. When I ran the script, it said it was a spot color and it could not be converted to a Pantone color with that script (it tells you what the closest pantone color is to any swatch).

So I used the magic wand, picked all those colors and physically changed the colors to the pantone color. I used Tim's settings and I printed again.

Exact same result.

 

[CES020]

Sorry, hit the back button on my browser and it posted again

 

[Tim Aucoin]

So... the dot pattern in the green & blue are normal, right?! You are using CMYK to make a certain colour and the dots are normal... Your green is 29% C and 100% Y, thus the blue dots in your yellow to obtain the green tint you need.

Not sure if you've tried the higher res setting.
Click the "SETUP" button on bottom of the print dialogue page...
Click the drop-down menu that says "Layout" and select "Printer Features"...
What is your print quality set to?
I tried it at the default and came with the same LARGE dots you have.
I changed it to "ProQ2400" and it is much better.
Give that a shot and see if it gives you better results... let me know...

 

[CES020]

Ah Ha! Just as I keep telling OKI tech support. I'm MISSING something!

On my dye sub printer, I have that "printer features" option, on this printer, I don't.

See the screen shot.

I kept telling them "It's like it's printing at low resolution".

Thanks Tim!