hp l26500 yellow help

[yamaha581]

We just picked up a used l26500 and have not really had any problems with it besides one thing we noticed. For some reason the yellow is not really a solid yellow. It seems to have a bunch of black dots in it. We were using a friends l26500 before with onyx rip and had no problems, we also were using our l25500 with the onyx rip and had no problems. We now have our own shop and have flexi and noticed this. We never used this printer on the onyx rip so I can't say what it was like. Does anyone know what would cause this? Would it possibly be the ink or the print head? It seems to only be on the yellow that we notice this or that it is atleast that noticeable.

Thanks!

 

[danno]

I have seen that situation arise with a few different printers. At our shop, when we designs vector art, we usually turn off all icc profiles to read the artwork as designed. In some of your testing, when we have applied a print profile such as srgb iec or swop v2, we will get a little bit of other colours in our yellow.

 

[dypinc]

Color Management settings are not correct.

Linearization and Profile was not created for your printer media combination or you made a mistake when creating your Linearization and Profile.

Also helps if you set RIP to print as Clean Colors.

 

[yamaha581]

This is the same profile that we had used when we were using onyx. With onyx it worked perfect but now that we are using flexi it is not as good with mainly the yellow. I don't know too much about all of the settings on flexi but I will check out some things and see if I can figure out any of that. I have never really modified a profile specifically for the vinyl. We have always just used the recommended profiles and have never had any problems with them until now with this material.

 

[dypinc]

Onyx is not Flexi. Linearization and Ink Limits will not match the profile. Create a new Linearization, Ink Limits and Profile with Flexi.

 

[P Wagner]

This is the same profile that we had used when we were using onyx. With onyx it worked perfect but now that we are using flexi it is not as good with mainly the yellow. I don't know too much about all of the settings on flexi but I will check out some things and see if I can figure out any of that. I have never really modified a profile specifically for the vinyl. We have always just used the recommended profiles and have never had any problems with them until now with this material.

You need to narrow down the source of the issue, as there are two basic possibilities:

1) You are experiencing cross-contamination in the K-Y printhead(s)
2) Your media profile is creating the 'smudge dots' in the yellow.

The good news is that it is easy to figure out which is responsible by doing the following:

a) Run a Printhead Test Print (from the printer's control panel: Ink Menu > Image quality maintenance > Clean Printheads > Test Print. If there is cross contamination happening in the printhead, you will see it in this test. The solution in this case is to clean or replace the affected head(s).

b) In there is no cross contamination happening (as I suspect might be the case), take the attached PDF file that contains filled strips of 100% CMYK, and print it with all color corrections/ color management turned OFF in the RIP. Doing this will pass through the straight CMYK values, without corrections or adjustments. You should see no scum dots in any of the colors if you do this. As I recall, Flexi also offers a 'pure hues' function that may perform a similar function.

By the way, with the Latex 260 printer, your comment about using the same profile in Flexi that was used in Onyx is not possible. It would be possible in the Latex 300 series (OMS files are RIP agnostic), but not the 200 series machines.

 

[yamaha581]

You need to narrow down the source of the issue, as there are two basic possibilities:

1) You are experiencing cross-contamination in the K-Y printhead(s)
2) Your media profile is creating the 'smudge dots' in the yellow.

The good news is that it is easy to figure out which is responsible by doing the following:

a) Run a Printhead Test Print (from the printer's control panel: Ink Menu > Image quality maintenance > Clean Printheads > Test Print. If there is cross contamination happening in the printhead, you will see it in this test. The solution in this case is to clean or replace the affected head(s).

b) In there is no cross contamination happening (as I suspect might be the case), take the attached PDF file that contains filled strips of 100% CMYK, and print it with all color corrections/ color management turned OFF in the RIP. Doing this will pass through the straight CMYK values, without corrections or adjustments. You should see no scum dots in any of the colors if you do this. As I recall, Flexi also offers a 'pure hues' function that may perform a similar function.

By the way, with the Latex 260 printer, your comment about using the same profile in Flexi that was used in Onyx is not possible. It would be possible in the Latex 300 series (OMS files are RIP agnostic), but not the 200 series machines.

Thank you for all the info. I will go ahead and try that out and see what I can come up with!

As for the profile I did not mean the exact same profile. It is the same profile one was just for the onyx rip and the other is for flexi so I was just saying it was the same profile.

 

[yamaha581]

I went ahead and turned off the color correction for this print and the yellow did come out perfect. The only thing I noticed now was that some of the ink seemed to bleed together a little. If you look at the pictures you can see in the black name the words are a little blurry. I have never really adjusted any profiles or anything so that is why I am coming here to try and figure this out so I can stop being annoying. lol. Is it better to print with color correction off on all prints or is it just depending on how it comes out? Also is there anything you would recomment to do to this setting with the color correction turned off so it is not blurry? This print definitely looks like the red came out a lot better than it did with the color correction on. I am comparing the blue to what we normally had but this blue does look closer to what we needed as well.

Thanks for all the help so far.

 

[dypinc]

The best thing to do is create a new Linearization, Ink Limits and Profile. That will save you lots of time and materials in the long run and avoid all the guesswork and tweaking.

If Flexi offers a 'pure hues' function then use that when you want pure yellow, blacks etc.

There is no substitution for proper color management.

 

[yamaha581]

I appreciate the help. I do have it all figured out now with all of the colors and everything is back to printing out like it was originally.

Thanks!