mimaki and printing red

[SameDay Signs]

Running flexi 8.1 and having so much trouble printing red ...ive used so many profiles does anyone know of a profile or certain setting that works well in flexi ? I am running a mimaki jv130sp ii in 2x4 mode. Will be buying a new print and cut mimaki in june so dont want to spend money on new rip bit need it fixed because we will be keeping printer in use at our 2nd shop. Thanks for the help in advance

 

[artbot]

not that i'm going to be of much help, but your going to need to tell the color gurus what ink type and media.

 

[MikePro]

try printing a CMYK color chart with your profiles turned off.
find the value you're looking for and use the Color Replacement tool in the rip or setup a spot color in your print file.

I get some nice reds at diffrent combinations of 80%+ Magenta and Yellow. Sometimes throwing in some Black for darker tones and cyan if i want to reach into the purples.
otherwise, it never hurts to ask whomever you're buying your printer from for a little assistance with your color profiling.

 

[SightLine]

The best reds will never come from canned profiles. Flexi has color profiling built in but you will need an X-Rite Eye One to use the color profiler built into Flexi.

Other than that - do what Mike said. Print your own color chart (I dont' print CMYK charts though, we keep full Pantone charts printed)or start experimenting with 2x2" blocks messing with the color values to find one that you like. I have done this in the past many times. CMYK will restrict the color range but sometimes gets you where you need to be. In the color mixer box you can try RGB, CMYK, Lab, HSV, duotones.... I've at times in the past hit an odd color using Lab values as well. Just make sure to document it in case you need it for another job later.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

With the right profile you can get really nice red, but it's a pain. I don't know about Flexi's RIP, but there should be a way to go in and replace colors in the file with manually entered CMYK values. If so, try C7/M100/Y90/K5 and see what you get. We get the best reds with this mix, but you may need to experiment with the cyan and black levels to get it dialed in, and you'll also probably have to play with different profiles and number of passes as well. On our JV33 we can dead match 3M's Dark Red plotter vinyl with this CMYK mix on 180C running unidirectional 12-pass.

 

[SameDay Signs]

I am having my tech come in late next week to take a peek since he is being certified currently to work on Mimakis but Great help guys and Insignia great Idea I tried your combo and without even tweaking it, it came out beautiful so thanks a ton and thats a great idea i even changed my yellow a little bit.

 

[Letterbox Mike]

Glad that worked for you. Reds are really hard to hit if you let toe RIP manage it, but overriding it manually can net some great results. The CMYK formula is also critical, it seems like people commonly assume 0/100/100/0 is going to be the best red but it's not very rich and leans to the orange side because of the yellow. Backing the yellow off 10% or more, and adding in cyan and black really really helps it pop.

The same is true of burgundy colors, which can be as hard to print as red, if not harder. Dropping the yellow 15-20% and bringing the cyan and black up into the 15%-ish range produces a great burgundy.

That all said, ideally you shouldn't have to manually make these adjustments, the profile should render the red exactly as you design it, but I've yet to see even the best profile out there generate a perfect red without some operator intervention.

 

[Rooster]

A good red likes lots of ink, so increase the resolution, number of passes or both. You need a profile for that setting though (resolution and number of passes). Just using the same profile and changing the printer settings will not produce the same results.

You can see some examples of how resolution impacts color in a previous thread here:

http://www.signs101.com/forums/show...f+how+resolution+can+affect+color.#post755093

 

[MikePro]

100 magenta, 100 yellow
print it, and you'll never regret it

its easy to remember too!

 

[Letterbox Mike]

A good red likes lots of ink, so increase the resolution, number of passes or both. You need a profile for that setting though (resolution and number of passes). Just using the same profile and changing the printer settings will not produce the same results.

You can see some examples of how resolution impacts color in a previous thread here:

http://www.signs101.com/forums/show...f+how+resolution+can+affect+color.#post755093

This is absolutely true. For the record (I should have pointed this out) my suggestion of manually replacing a color with a new formula is a bandaid and obviously only works on areas of solid spot colors. It's not a way to fix red in a photographic image or an image with any gradation of color.

 

[Dice]

Invest in an iOne, especially if you have multiple printers.

Creating your own profiles is the ONLY way to get correct, vibrant, and accurate Color.

 

[AaronR]

I have to agree with Dice. Invest in an iOne. Since I did and started making my own profile for PosterShop 7 I've been able to get some really nice reds and eliminated head strikes when printing red double-sided banners on 14oz material.

 

[J Hill Designs]

my fave red off my printer starts at 255:0:0 (RGB)