HP310 & 360 Latex - Tips/Tricks for hitting a certain red color?

[MarkH42]

We have an HP310 and an HP360 latex printer. One of our largest customers changed their logo color to 2347C, which is a very vibrant, bright red. We have played with CMYK values but we simply cannot hit this color and our attempts are just too dark, or too pink.

To add to the confusion, we also have an HP550 flatbed printer. It is also a 6-color machine (CMYK-LM-LC). The HP550 will print the PMS2347C perfectly.

I realize the latex inks are different from the UV inks in our flatbed. Are there any tips or tricks that we could try to possibly get closer to this red color? The 360 had a spectrometer that would make this process easier, but it quit working a while back and I haven't had it fixed yet. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! I'm willing to try pretty much anything at this point!

 

[balstestrat]

Try to find a premade profile for the media that you use. Either from the online search library or the manufacturer website.
Install that and do a colour calibration (won't work on that 360 if the spectro is not working). Then try to print the colour and adjust if needed.

Easiest would be if you had a handheld spectro then you could just scan or select the target, print and match. You can do it visually as well but it's better with a real spectro.
It's so easy and only takes few minutes. I've been matching some lime green, blue, red, colours that people say can't be printed. Yet still they come out pretty good.

 

[MarkH42]

We are going to get the spectrometer repaired. I was holding off on that because we haven't needed it, but in this case, it sounds like it will be a big help. I appreciate the advice!

 

[dypinc]

You would be better off to bypass color management for that spot color, by using a color library that you obtain the printer output values for by printing a color chart with various printer CMKY values and choose the closest match. Gamut wise you might not be able to hit it and will have to settle for the closest you can get.

 

[iPrintStuff]

Try using RGB maybe? We have a customer that always sends in crappy looking PDF’s and as a workaround I’ve always just opened them in illy, changed to RGB, saved it and printed them.

As far as I am aware the Lc and Lm don’t add gamut so that won’t be the difference. Sounds more like a profile/colour management issue.

 

[dypinc]

Try using RGB maybe? We have a customer that always sends in crappy looking PDF’s and as a workaround I’ve always just opened them in illy, changed to RGB, saved it and printed them.

As far as I am aware the Lc and Lm don’t add gamut so that won’t be the difference. Sounds more like a profile/colour management issue.

For darker high gamut colors I would use CMYK only as there is always a risk that you might be using some lc/lm which will reduce the density of CM because of HP's internal density limiting.