Monet Canvas problem with black

[klingsdesigns]

I never really noticed but a customer of mine says the blacks are two dark. If you look at the picture on the trees and other stuff there is really noticeable dark spots printing with black. I am printing versaworks vp540 mac7 with sign and display. Printing jpegs. Any help would be appreciated. Also sometimes skin color is way darker then the picture digital file.

 

[klingsdesigns]

anyone?

 

[woolly]

Imo versaworks is to dedicated to hi impact graphics leading to these photo problems.
Yet to find a good setup in vw that can equal what I am aftr.
things not helping you are only a 4 colour system and sign and display which is compress ing the colour range even more.

 

[klingsdesigns]

do you know if the signlab rip is any better. i have never used it but i have one.

 

[hansman]

You mentioned that you are using .jpgs
A better method is to convert it to a tiff or an uncompressed pdf.
Also, is it a b/w?
Ideally it should be converted from RGB to b/w then finally 4/c. You may need to back off on your black seperartion in Photoshop after converting to your output profile.
Finally you mention you are using "sign and display" IMHO that setting in versaworks is for high impact splashy colors. Switch over to SWOP or something a bit less saturated.

 

[nashvillesigns]

printing lessons

i don't know if your issues are program related but...

1. most printer will not print RGB files correctly. they need to be cmyk. Now, if you "unsaturate" a picture for printing, what would you get?

2. i would try and print thumnails of different hues of the suspect pic.

3. if you change if to "greyscale" what happens?

4.i know my mimaki can print green hues when i unsaturate a pic. basically you are pushing the cmyk values all over the place.
i would try sephiatones from photoshop....

like spahgetti, i hope this sticks to the fridge.....

-mosher

 

[TyrantDesigner]

What the others have said. RGB black (0,0,0) and those close to a 'pure black' in a photo ussually gets converted to a cmyk value around 75,75,75,75. and that is if the rip doesn't just shoot it straight to 100,100,100,100 which it can sometimes do (and also leads to the posterized plateau of black) If your rip lets you actually strip out the CMY out of the values and just go with the black value without any wonky conversion, go with that by converting to cmyk and desaturating the image ... that would also avoid the green greys. Otherwise if you are doing photo printing, it wouldn't hurt to do a hard proof for your jobs like this and might need some creative photoshoppery to create blacks that aren't fully saturated with ink.

 

[woolly]

Some good information thank you.
I have a Roland pro 2 combined with colourrip and a really excellent profile that prints photos very faithfully. But my vs with vw will print the same file with the colours compressed - poor shadows and blown out high lites. The physical print quality is very nice not a problem with that just the lack of shadow detail etc.

always check in photoshop that the details are there to start with. Tiff files are slightly better but a high quality jpeg should give good results.

 

[hansman]

IMHO a jpg should never be relied upon to send to a final output. Especially if its high quality you seek in the end. Usually they are RGB to begin with.
If its a color image fine but not for b&w. You are sending a compressed file to a rip and then depending on your rips ability to uncompress and reproduce it reliably.
I have seen three quarter tone detail turn to solid mud because of this.
In general the more conversion on the fly you take away from your rip the more predictable the final output.

 

[klingsdesigns]

sounds good i will try messing with some things. with these files i got from a photographer so i just sent right to print.

 

[hansman]

This would be the short version on how I would tackle this in Photoshop:
Be sure the image is at least 125 dpi + at output size. The higher the better.
Convert to B&W: Image>Mode>Grayscale (Be sure that your highlights are no less than 3% Shadows 95%). This is a generalzation and may need to be adjusted.
If you are printing on a CMYK based printer:
Then Convert to CMYK: Edit>Convert to Profile>Destination Space>Custom CMYK>Ink Colors>Swop Uncoated>Seperation Options>GCR>Black Generation>Heavy
You may need to play with the Black Ink Limit & Total Ink Limit. Also you can choose custom under Black Generation and pull your own curve.
The idea is to keep the image in grey balance using all 4 colors. If you just convert to a boxed profile your greys will be C-M-Y only, you want some black in there to prevent any color showing through on a B&W.
Final save to an uncompressed .tiff

There may be a better way to go about this but this should get you close.

BTW this is in Photoshop CS4

 

[klingsdesigns]

That will help. I have cs4.

How does this help me though on colored photos. Skin tones come out really dark when I print.

 

[hansman]

The above was for black and white printed on a cmyk printer only.
You just toss in diifferent conversions for colors, fleshtones etc.

BTW did you try and switch the versaworks off signs and display? That is a saturated profile............... > On canvas use SWOP output profile.