Issues with Pantone Reds on L360???

[Correct Color]

dypinc,

I don't disagree with you, but if it is addressed as a halftone device how would you handle the Latex Optimizer? How is it done on the 3000? Is the 3000 setup as contone device as well?

Indeed it is. And you may indeed be right that the ink optimizer is the reason they've released these machines as contone only. I did get a chance to ask someone reasonably high up at HP about that, and I didn't get an entirely clear answer.

But I also agree it's a serious flaw, and truly holds the machines back. Enough so that if I were in the market for a printer, I'd probably look elsewhere.

I'd just add that although it's obvious from your posts that you know what you're talking about, I don't share your love of XF; I much prefer Onyx. But since all RIP's are just dashboards for the RIP engine, that really comes down to personal choice.

Except for one thing that might be of importance here. I never use the internal profiling engine in any RIP, so it's not of great concern to me, but it is true that EFI's ICC profiling engine is much superior to that of Onyx. And by far and away the worst problem Onyx's ICC engine has is its Relative Colorimetric and Saturation rendering intents. They're so bad as to be damn near unusable.

Add to that that for some reason known only to themselves, Onyx saw fit to change their default spot color rendering intent to Saturation in the latest version, and that does make it possible to get some pretty weak results with any printer, if you make profiles in Onyx with the Onyx engine.

However, the bottom line is that with all things being equal, the issues the 360 has with colors -- and with mid and quarter tone graininess, which I find to be its biggest flaw -- have to do with it being a contone printer.


Mike

 

[AF]

The optimizer is just ionized water if I understand it correctly, and it can be turned off if it causes problems with certain media. Since it is not necessary, having a halftone mode would work fine.

As far as midtone graininess, with the 260 you can adjust your rip to eliminate the effect very easily so it is a shame you get stuck on the 360 with the setting picked by the engineers over at HP that have no idea what each of our individual needs are.

 

[P Wagner]

The optimizer is just ionized water if I understand it correctly

This is wholly incorrect. Ionizing water simply changes the PH balance, making it more or less alkaline or acidic.

HP's Optimizer is cationic (positive charge) while the other inks are all anionic (negatively charged). They cross-link upon contact with each other.

The presence of the Optimizer in the 831/881 inkset is unrelated to the fact that the 300 series are Contone printers.

 

[AF]

This is wholly incorrect. Ionizing water simply changes the PH balance, making it more or less alkaline or acidic.

HP's Optimizer is cationic (positive charge) while the other inks are all anionic (negatively charged). They cross-link upon contact with each other.

The presence of the Optimizer in the 831/881 inkset is unrelated to the fact that the 300 series are Contone printers.

We are saying the same thing. Pure water has a neutral PH and no ions and is non-conductive. But add ions of a positive charge and you now have water with ions in it which is ionized water.

Cross-linking is a chemical reaction not an electromagnetic force so I believe that such a reaction does not occur in the case of latex optimizer.

 

[P Wagner]

There are various derivatives of the term cross-linking, in biology and polymer chemistry. In this case, it refers to synthetic polymer chemistry, and cross-linking does indeed happen upon contact between the Optimizer and colorant inks in the HP Latex 3000/ 300 series inksets.