Grey Gradient on 3M

[SignNers]

I am trying to print a grey gradient. Lighter grey to Darker grey on 3M 180IJ CV3.I am using the 3M profile from Roland's website as the profile from 3M website is not working for my printer (Roland XC 540 III)
Anyway, using that profile I somehow achieved the result and it is prints grey, but when I laminate it….the color changes drastically to greenish. The print was allowed to dry for 24 hrs before putting the lamination.
Also I used 3M laminate, Avery laminate as well as Liquid laminate but unfortunately all the 3 have same results.
Any suggestion.Feedback would be truly appreciated.

 

[Mosh]

The age old green/grey issue. Search this site there are 10,000 posts with answers. Profiles and file trpes are the basics.

 

[heyskull]

You will never get a 4 colour or a 6 colour printer to print a fade to grey.
Try a few different profiles but you will always get a green or burgundy tinge to a grey fade.

SC

 

[cptcorn]

You will never get a 4 colour or a 6 colour printer to print a fade to grey.
Try a few different profiles but you will always get a green or burgundy tinge to a grey fade.

SC

This is incorrect and misleading information.

You can correct these issues by properly calibrating your machine in conjunction with developing your own in-house profiles, either by yourself or by a trained professional.

 

[MachServTech]

This is incorrect and misleading information.

You can correct these issues by properly calibrating your machine in conjunction with developing your own in-house profiles, either by yourself or by a trained professional.

That is true, even Versaworks lets you recalibrate (re linearize) an existing profile. You could buy a i1 spectro for the amount of time, ink and materal you waste in one color critical job.

 

[Jackpine]

Try converting the gray scale vector to a RGB 150 dpi bitmap. Or convert to a gray scale and print K only. Has always worked for me.

 

[heyskull]

CMYK printers use all 4 colours available to print grey fades.
Yes sometimes you can adjust the profile but you will always get an ish result.
If there is other colours in the design changing the profile will alter them!
Using an i1 will not help you on a fade.

SC

 

[SignNers]

Try converting the gray scale vector to a RGB 150 dpi bitmap. Or convert to a gray scale and print K only. Has always worked for me.

Convert to greyscale will not help me because that image contains few colored images too.

 

[cptcorn]

Try converting the gray scale vector to a RGB 150 dpi bitmap. Or convert to a gray scale and print K only. Has always worked for me.

This is redundant. The RIP still needs to convert the colors. The issue resides in the profile. Printing straight K would work if no color is required. However it should not be necessary.

CMYK printers use all 4 colours available to print grey fades.
Yes sometimes you can adjust the profile but you will always get an ish result.
If there is other colours in the design changing the profile will alter them!
Using an i1 will not help you on a fade.

SC

This is wrong. If you're statement was true, explain why I can willingly control where a red or green shift occurs in a black to white gradient when printing CMY and still obtain neutral grays without introducing any K into the print.

 

[Mosh]

Here we go again.......

 

[omgsideburns]

lol pink n green grey

 

[thewood]

You will never get a 4 colour or a 6 colour printer to print a fade to grey.
Try a few different profiles but you will always get a green or burgundy tinge to a grey fade.

SC

Wrong. Because you are not able to achieve such a fade, don't assume it can't be done.

Anyways, the OP seems satisfied with the initial print. It's the laminate that is causing the color shift. No?

 

[mark in tx]

cptorn is correct, the profile is the issue.

If a laminate causes a color shift, then a profile can be made for a laminated print.

Or you can screw around with a bunch of "tricks" to get the color.

Or get a profile done.

 

[MachServTech]

If a laminate causes a color shift, then a profile can be made for a laminated print.

Exactly

 

[sjm]

This is incorrect and misleading information.

You can correct these issues by properly calibrating your machine in conjunction with developing your own in-house profiles, either by yourself or by a trained professional.

Specifically pay attention to GCR and UCR when building your profile. Also remember it may look neutral under your viewing conditions but not the same under different viewing conditions.

 

[sjm]

CMYK printers use all 4 colours available to print grey fades.
Yes sometimes you can adjust the profile but you will always get an ish result.
If there is other colours in the design changing the profile will alter them!
Using an i1 will not help you on a fade.

SC

Though commercial printers are also CMYK and they have been around a lot longer than digital printing. Yet they have mastered neutral grays. How is that possible?

 

[cptcorn]

Specifically pay attention to GCR and UCR when building your profile. Also remember it may look neutral under your viewing conditions but not the same under different viewing conditions.

GCR plays an amazing role in all of this. Yes. I'm not sure how to respond to your last statement though. The sun is my viewing condition... minus weather, it's kelvin rating is the same everyone. However when you're creating a profile, it's not reading ambient light and determines the white balance from the media. When you create profiles, your taking in all variables. Media white point, temp, humidity, static, machine shake, wind, Santa's distance from Switzerland. If any of this changes, your colors and grays will shift to some degree.

Though commercial printers are also CMYK and they have been around a lot longer than digital printing. Yet they have mastered neutral grays. How is that possible?

When it comes to color calibration you have two choices... Super neutral grays, or super accurate color. You can't have both. You try to find a good compromise with both. This seems to be the secondary roll of your GCR values. 90% of the people on this planet wont be able to detect shifts in either... It's up to what your client's artwork demands where you should tailor your profiles.

Commercial printers have enough experience and capital invested in color management that they can quickly, and easily find those compromises.

 

[sjm]

GCR plays an amazing role in all of this. Yes. I'm not sure how to respond to your last statement though. The sun is my viewing condition... minus weather, it's kelvin rating is the same everyone. However when you're creating a profile, it's not reading ambient light and determines the white balance from the media. When you create profiles, your taking in all variables. Media white point, temp, humidity, static, machine shake, wind, Santa's distance from Switzerland. If any of this changes, your colors and grays will shift to some degree.

When it comes to color calibration you have two choices... Super neutral grays, or super accurate color. You can't have both. You try to find a good compromise with both. This seems to be the secondary roll of your GCR values. 90% of the people on this planet wont be able to detect shifts in either... It's up to what your client's artwork demands where you should tailor your profiles.

Commercial printers have enough experience and capital invested in color management that they can quickly, and easily find those compromises.

cptorn think of viewing gray under incandescent (warmish yellow) lighting and under cool blue floursent lighting per say. They will look different.

Allow me to offer an example have you ever purchased something at a clothing store and then when you took it outside or home it looked a complete different colour?

Discussing Kelvin while important will just confuse the issue. Suffice to say as in my example unless both are viewed in the same conditions problems arise.

 

[cptcorn]

cptorn think of viewing gray under incandescent (warmish yellow) lighting and under cool blue floursent lighting per say. They will look different.

Allow me to offer an example have you ever purchased something at a clothing store and then when you took it outside or home it looked a complete different colour?

Discussing Kelvin while important will just confuse the issue. Suffice to say as in my example unless both are viewed in the same conditions problems arise.

And this phenomenon you are referring to is the shift in the Kelvin rating of the light source.

The kelvin is often used in the measure of the color temperature of light sources. Color temperature is based upon the principle that a black body radiator emits light whose color depends on the temperature of the radiator. Black bodies with temperatures below about 4000 K appear reddish whereas those above about 7500 K appear bluish. Color temperature is important in the fields of image projection and photography where a color temperature of approximately 5600 K is required to match "daylight" film emulsions. In astronomy, the stellar classification of stars and their place on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram are based, in part, upon their surface temperature, known as effective temperature. The photosphere of the Sun, for instance, has an effective temperature of 5778 K.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin#Color_temperature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature

 

[sjm]

Yes, that's why it's important if you are working with a high end client for example in the cosmetic industry you go to their location and read the ambient light temperature (with your spectrophotometer) then you build your profile around that.