Editing Programs

[Ron at Forest Litho]

Pantone is the best way to color match.

But Not id you are Printing in CMYK. The pantones are actual chemical colors and many times cannot be perfectly translated into CMYK.

 

[Ron at Forest Litho]

Someone mentioned printing in RGB instead of CMYK and getting more vibrant color. I've noticed that also. Even tho the printer is basically a CMYK machine! In RGB the printer's rip is translating and it mixes a lot of ink into the colors so they are deeper, Especially blacks. In CMYK we would have the black as just 100% black which keeps the black nice and clean for text and lines, BUT if you have a black background it can be a little wimpy. In CMYK, if I want a deep black I'll make it 100% black with 22% cyan and 17% Magenta (or something in that area) and the black is nice and solid. BUT the hated RBG black is a veritable flood of all 4 colors ranging from 62% to 88% each. The danger from smearing and K.O. fill in is there. That being said, most printers today are better at handling the "flood" than the ones from 20 years. But RGB black still gives me the worries when I convert files to CMYK for printing.

 

[Bobby H]

I leave Pantone specified colors as Pantone spot color fills. All but one of our large format printers have extra ink colors (light magenta, light cyan). Onyx Thrive has its own Pantone look up tables to make six color conversions. The RIP usually does a pretty good job at matching most Pantone spot colors. Only some of the most intense greens and purples are a little out of reach. They still look better than a plain CMYK or RGB conversion.

For rich black, I do "300%" black, which is usually C:75-M:68-Y:65-K:90 (it actually adds up to 298, but whatever). I think it works slightly better than C:30-M:30-Y:30-K:100.

 

[Think713]

I leave Pantone specified colors as Pantone spot color fills. All but one of our large format printers have extra ink colors (light magenta, light cyan). Onyx Thrive has its own Pantone look up tables to make six color conversions. The RIP usually does a pretty good job at matching most Pantone spot colors. Only some of the most intense greens and purples are a little out of reach. They still look better than a plain CMYK or RGB conversion.

For rich black, I do "300%" black, which is usually C:75-M:68-Y:65-K:90 (it actually adds up to 298, but whatever). I think it works slightly better than C:30-M:30-Y:30-K:100.

IME HP latex printers don't match pantones well at all.. even with cmyk mixes. We have LC and LM on our inks as well and as much good as it does, it doesn't really aid in the pantone department. I think thats an issue with latex though. My experience with ecosolvent inks especially the g3 inks, has been way better with color reproduction.

 

[Bobby H]

IME HP latex printers don't match pantones well at all.. even with cmyk mixes.

What RIP are you using and what kind of files are you feeding it? IMHO, Pantone spot color specifications are pretty much worthless once they're dumped down into a more narrow CMYK mixture.

We have a pair of HP 360 printers and a HP 700W. They seem to do a pretty good job simulating Pantone spot colors via output from Onyx Thrive. I prefer feeding Thrive PDF files output from Adobe Illustrator -especially if there are any gradients or fills/effects involving transparency. Mind you, I do NOT use Pantone colors in gradient fills or any fills involving transparency. Just flat colors. I use CorelDRAW a lot but it sucks in the transparency area. Even the new 2026 version of CorelDRAW will tend to rasterize gradient fills in an exported PDF file if the fills have any transparency. And it still only exports Illustrator AI files with CS6 being the latest supported format -CS6 was released in 2012! A lot has changed with Illustrator since then. It's really become a giant PITA moving artwork between CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator, but that's another tangent.

A good while ago we used to run a Roland VersaCAMM ecosolvent printer (VP-540 model). It did a passable job with some color matching, but anything meant for backlit purposes was pure garbage. The prints would wash out bad. And the RIP that came with the printer had severe limitations. The 360 model latex printers were a bit better for backlit graphics. Onyx Thrive could do some things Roland's software couldn't -particularly in handling print and cut operations with certain kinds of graphics. We have the 700W and two flatbed printers that can output white ink. That makes a much bigger difference for backlit sign faces and other graphics.

 

[Think713]

What RIP are you using and what kind of files are you feeding it? IMHO, Pantone spot color specifications are pretty much worthless once they're dumped down into a more narrow CMYK mixture.

We have a pair of HP 360 printers and a HP 700W. They seem to do a pretty good job simulating Pantone spot colors via output from Onyx Thrive. I prefer feeding Thrive PDF files output from Adobe Illustrator -especially if there are any gradients or fills/effects involving transparency. Mind you, I do NOT use Pantone colors in gradient fills or any fills involving transparency. Just flat colors. I use CorelDRAW a lot but it sucks in the transparency area. Even the new 2026 version of CorelDRAW will tend to rasterize gradient fills in an exported PDF file if the fills have any transparency. And it still only exports Illustrator AI files with CS6 being the latest supported format -CS6 was released in 2012! A lot has changed with Illustrator since then. It's really become a giant PITA moving artwork between CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator, but that's another tangent.

A good while ago we used to run a Roland VersaCAMM ecosolvent printer (VP-540 model). It did a passable job with some color matching, but anything meant for backlit purposes was pure garbage. The prints would wash out bad. And the RIP that came with the printer had severe limitations. The 360 model latex printers were a bit better for backlit graphics. Onyx Thrive could do some things Roland's software couldn't -particularly in handling print and cut operations with certain kinds of graphics. We have the 700W and two flatbed printers that can output white ink. That makes a much bigger difference for backlit sign faces and other graphics.

WE run a 570 and a 560. Even pantones directly out of onyx print with variability and arent perfect. We just scrapped using that matching system all together and do it manually. Its the only way we can guaruntee a true print. I mean depending on the printheads that day, the printer can just do something wacky. We've learned to not trust the printers. They have to constantly be babysit. Kind of the trade off with HP. I wish we had epsons.

 

[Think713]

What RIP are you using and what kind of files are you feeding it? IMHO, Pantone spot color specifications are pretty much worthless once they're dumped down into a more narrow CMYK mixture.

We have a pair of HP 360 printers and a HP 700W. They seem to do a pretty good job simulating Pantone spot colors via output from Onyx Thrive. I prefer feeding Thrive PDF files output from Adobe Illustrator -especially if there are any gradients or fills/effects involving transparency. Mind you, I do NOT use Pantone colors in gradient fills or any fills involving transparency. Just flat colors. I use CorelDRAW a lot but it sucks in the transparency area. Even the new 2026 version of CorelDRAW will tend to rasterize gradient fills in an exported PDF file if the fills have any transparency. And it still only exports Illustrator AI files with CS6 being the latest supported format -CS6 was released in 2012! A lot has changed with Illustrator since then. It's really become a giant PITA moving artwork between CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator, but that's another tangent.

A good while ago we used to run a Roland VersaCAMM ecosolvent printer (VP-540 model). It did a passable job with some color matching, but anything meant for backlit purposes was pure garbage. The prints would wash out bad. And the RIP that came with the printer had severe limitations. The 360 model latex printers were a bit better for backlit graphics. Onyx Thrive could do some things Roland's software couldn't -particularly in handling print and cut operations with certain kinds of graphics. We have the 700W and two flatbed printers that can output white ink. That makes a much bigger difference for backlit sign faces and other graphics.

In the comment of onyx vs roland, the more I use onyx the more I love it. What it does for print/cut graphics is great. We run a summa plotter with it, and it does a phenomenal job at contour. And I love the tile feature, so if we need to isolate a specific part to reproduce, onyx will just create the cutpath for that section of the file. Absolutley briliant. Lots of cool stuff can be done in onyx vs versaworks.
Latex has been great for backlit graphics too. I can definitely get on board with that. HPs printer profiles does make it easy to increase ink density. However some materials dont do great with the curing units so theres a balance between that vacuum speed and advance rate. We've had lots of different materials bow up and cause crashes, even if its tensioned on a take up reel. The PPE materials are some of the worst.

 

[Think713]

Someone mentioned printing in RGB instead of CMYK and getting more vibrant color. I've noticed that also. Even tho the printer is basically a CMYK machine! In RGB the printer's rip is translating and it mixes a lot of ink into the colors so they are deeper, Especially blacks. In CMYK we would have the black as just 100% black which keeps the black nice and clean for text and lines, BUT if you have a black background it can be a little wimpy. In CMYK, if I want a deep black I'll make it 100% black with 22% cyan and 17% Magenta (or something in that area) and the black is nice and solid. BUT the hated RBG black is a veritable flood of all 4 colors ranging from 62% to 88% each. The danger from smearing and K.O. fill in is there. That being said, most printers today are better at handling the "flood" than the ones from 20 years. But RGB black still gives me the worries when I convert files to CMYK for printing.

We do all output from illustrator as rich blacks for our blacks. Unless someone specifically wants a sort of matted black, we always opt for that. But I think thats just a preference thing. Some clients don't even notice. Once in a while we have someone specify, but its not that often.