Custom mimaki ICC profile headaches

[NathanR]

Greetings folks,
So I've been going down that lovey learning rabbit hole of making custom printing profiles per request from my boss and I've run into a few walls.

Little background, we purchased a used Mimaki jfx200 from a local printshop that was closing about a year ago it came with Rasterlink6 which we've been learning the in and out's of and finally getting along to where we wanted to start making our own profiles to better color match and all that fun jazz.

We got a x-rite i1 studio spectrometer and I was able to make a profile though it's software but then I learned after a bit of research that rasterlink only uses profiles made from Mimaki profile maker, so I downloaded the trail of that only to find out that it doesn't detect the i1 studio spectrometer.

So my questions are,
1) Has anyone had any success using the the i1 studio spectrometer with the full version of MPM3 or would we need to get one of the other x-rite spectrometers like the Pro 2?
2) Any chance it's possible rent the equipment to make sure it works before shelling out a bunch of money for it
3)Alternatively any recommendations on color techs that work in the greater Seattle-Tacoma, Wa area? (if that is allowed to be asked in this part of the form)

As always any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Solventinkjet]

I don't have a lot of experience with profiling but I do know that Rasterlink takes regular .icc files. Have you tried that and it still didn't work?

 

[NathanR]

I tried to load in a profile I made using X-rite's software into the profile manager and then in Rasterlink I went to the quality tab and then in color match of to the right side added a new category "test" in the drop down box which allowed me to scroll down to import profile icc and select profiles for rgb and cymk. After that I ran a print and all I would get is a nice shade of orange the shape of my print, which while pretty wasn't quite what I was looking for.

I could be doing my steps wrong for loading in profiles because this has all been a very trial and error learning process, but what I gathered looking through some of the other threads
was that Rasterlink only works with MPM created profiles and that it only accepts a narrow selection of spectrometers.

 

[iPrintStuff]

Honestly Rasterlink is a bit of a crappy software. If you’re going to shell out the money to start profiling there are a lot of standalone rips that handle this much better. Onyx or Caldera for example.

Maybe try a demo of one of those and see how you get on. Profiling in onyx is very straightforward and has pretty good results.

In general it has a lot of advantages over RL6 too. A lot more features etc. Worth just testing out. I’ve always found mimaki software to be miles behind. Does what it needs to but it’s pretty ugly about it.

 

[Solventinkjet]

I tried to load in a profile I made using X-rite's software into the profile manager and then in Rasterlink I went to the quality tab and then in color match of to the right side added a new category "test" in the drop down box which allowed me to scroll down to import profile icc and select profiles for rgb and cymk. After that I ran a print and all I would get is a nice shade of orange the shape of my print, which while pretty wasn't quite what I was looking for.

I could be doing my steps wrong for loading in profiles because this has all been a very trial and error learning process, but what I gathered looking through some of the other threads
was that Rasterlink only works with MPM created profiles and that it only accepts a narrow selection of spectrometers.

Ok yeah so you changed the input profile and you want to install them as output profiles. I would go back into Rasterlink and change the input profiles back to the defaults. Then close Rasterlink and go find the Rasterlink folder. In there will be another program simply called Profile Manager. Use that program to install your profile as an output profile. Then when you open Rasterlink again it will show your profile as an option for an output profile.

 

[NathanR]

Honestly Rasterlink is a bit of a crappy software. If you’re going to shell out the money to start profiling there are a lot of standalone rips that handle this much better. Onyx or Caldera for example.

Maybe try a demo of one of those and see how you get on. Profiling in onyx is very straightforward and has pretty good results.

In general it has a lot of advantages over RL6 too. A lot more features etc. Worth just testing out. I’ve always found mimaki software to be miles behind. Does what it needs to but it’s pretty ugly about it.

Unfortunately we are still a fairly small company so using second had equipment with a limited budget so just switching rip software isn't quite on the table just yet, I like the idea of trying out some trail versions of software if available though thanks for the suggestion.

 

[NathanR]

Ok yeah so you changed the input profile and you want to install them as output profiles. I would go back into Rasterlink and change the input profiles back to the defaults. Then close Rasterlink and go find the Rasterlink folder. In there will be another program simply called Profile Manager. Use that program to install your profile as an output profile. Then when you open Rasterlink again it will show your profile as an option for an output profile.

So when I go into Profile Manager all it gives me is Device profiles and Input profiles as the only two options.
my understanding is the device profile is for adding printer which at the moment we only have the one and I tried to see if my color profile would work and it didn't recognize it has being valid.
the input profile does recognize my color profile but then the only way I can find it is to use in RL6 is to do that color correction area which leads to the sunrise color fill effect.

Apologies if I'm missing something super obvious this is all very new to me.

 

[MichaelGass]

A few questions
What material?
Have you been to Mimaki website and added a profile that may work?
To add the profile you created it is the device profile installation button on top left then add your profile. Open the job and select your profile from dropdown in quality tab.
Also I can talk to you about a try before you buy profilemaker with densitometer or maybe renting you mine. Feel free to call me 901 871 1067.

 

[NathanR]

A few questions
What material?
Have you been to Mimaki website and added a profile that may work?
To add the profile you created it is the device profile installation button on top left then add your profile. Open the job and select your profile from dropdown in quality tab.
Also I can talk to you about a try before you buy profilemaker with densitometer or maybe renting you mine. Feel free to call me 901 871 1067.

We are printing on a few different materials, Clear and black acrylic, underlayment plywood, and leatherette of different colors.
from what I can tell we have all the default mimaki profiles for our printer that are available and for in house stuff I think they work just fine it's when getting custom work and we want to match the customers image as close as possible it starts to become an issue.
Honestly I think what we are running into color matching when Pantone colors are used, which after a bunch of reading seems to be a thing with mimaki's software and all that jazz.
I'll talk with my boss and see how he wants to proceed and if he's intrested give you a ring.

 

[MichaelGass]

UV is its own animal. Do you know how to create a color swatch in Rasterlink? If you just need to hit a PMS color it works great but takes a few minutes.

 

[johnb554]

A few questions
What material?
Have you been to Mimaki website and added a profile that may work?
To add the profile you created it is the device profile installation button on top left then add your profile. Open the job and select your profile from dropdown in quality tab.
Also I can talk to you about a try before you buy profilemaker with densitometer or maybe renting you mine. Feel free to call me 901 871 1067.

Sorry to intrude on the thread.

Michael - I would be really interested to see if you can help me with some profiling issues on my Mimaki machines.
Do you think we can get in touch somehow?
I am all the way in Canada, however, but I am hitting a brick wall with color management on my machine, and I do not have the software to create the profiles.
If there is any way for me to pay for your services and perhaps do this remotely, I would be immensely grateful.

 

[SickPrints]

Ok yeah so you changed the input profile and you want to install them as output profiles. I would go back into Rasterlink and change the input profiles back to the defaults. Then close Rasterlink and go find the Rasterlink folder. In there will be another program simply called Profile Manager. Use that program to install your profile as an output profile. Then when you open Rasterlink again it will show your profile as an option for an output profile.

I’ve got the same problem as NathanR detailed in his response to this message. The color profile is able to be installed as an input profile within Rasterlink Profile Manager, but isn’t recognized when trying to install it as a device profile. Color profile was made with a Color Checker Studio.

 

[ColorCrest]

Color profile was made with a Color Checker Studio.

Rasterlink requires a CMYK output profile. Does Color Checker Studio generate such or only RGB?

 

[SickPrints]

Rasterlink requires a CMYK output profile. Does Color Checker Studio generate such or only RGB?

It does. The ICC profile I made is CMYK and it isn’t recognized as a device profile within Profile Manager, only as an input profile.

Another seperate “issue” is that I’m unable to switch between input profiles within rasterlink. Looks like you should be able to on the right side within the color management tab, but that section is greyed out.

The replies above might be on to something in regards to Onyx, just hoping to rule out my incompetence before shelling out for that.

 

[ColorCrest]

The ICC profile I made is CMYK

The next step I would try is to find and download any Mimaki output profile whatsoever, to see if that works at all.

 

[Hamster]

You need to download the mimaki profile master software and make profiles using it. rasterlink only accepts profiles from mpm