(Roland VG2) Veresaworks Printing Grey (gray) prints pink - Solution

[spooledUP7]

Super frustrating when the gray prints pink, am I right? I have no idea why Roland ships straight out of the box with this obvious undesirable issue, but they do. I have gone through a massive amount of setting and color values in an effort to print a clean gray color and a massive amount of vinyl. Anyway, here is a solution you may want to try, and if you have any solutions you have used then please add to this thread.

It's all in the settings.
Try these versaworks settings:
Vinyl: [8c] Generic Vinyl 1
Preset: Custom
Simulation Target Profiles
• RGB: AdobeRGB1998
• CMYK: USWebCoatedSWOP
Matching Method
• Raster: Absolute
• Vector: Absolute
Preserve Primary Colors: Checked
Use Embedded ICC Profile: Unchecked

 

[Solventinkjet]

Grays printing pink or greenish is a very common issue in digital printing. While you can sort of fix it by playing around with settings like you have, the most effective way is to make your own color profiles. The profiles that come with printers or that you download off the internet are just there to get you printing quickly with decent results. For perfect results you have to make your own.

 

[spooledUP7]

Grays printing pink or greenish is a very common issue in digital printing. While you can sort of fix it by playing around with settings like you have, the most effective way is to make your own color profiles. The profiles that come with printers or that you download off the internet are just there to get you printing quickly with decent results. For perfect results you have to make your own.

I agree, however...
You would think this would have already been done, making a profile that prints grays as grays. I understand dialing in close colors to perfect colors, but no profiles which I have tried are anywhere near the "Close" portion of gray. They are not even in the same planet let alone near intent.
I don't own a spectrometer, nor do I have the experience to use one or setup profiles. I have tried several times and it's beyond me. I usually find a profile that generally works and run with it, but the grays have been a problem ever since I switched to Roland. My HP printed EVERYTHING close to the intended values and it was just minor tweaks in settings to get me the rest of the way there.
Anyway, I agree with you, but for those that don't have the skills or equipment I offer the above workaround. Thanks for adding to it.

 

[MrDav3C]

So, we used to have issues with green or pink hues to grey, for quite a while I used to add a percentage of either pink or green to our greys to overcome the issue at the design stage, obviously bare in mind this can also affect how dark the grey is

Also we reduced the magenta in the colour settings in versaworks using the level sliders and the curve adjustment which seemed to help us.

These days however, our ink supplier also does our printer maintenance & they also come out and make colour profiles for us using a spectrophotometer. The difference is honestly night and day, colours a beautiful, greys are actually a perfect grey and we use less ink which saves money. Would highly recommend finding a technician who does colour profiling, one of these things I wish we did sooner!

 

[IndySignPro]

Here is the common issue with grey tones on CMYK that no one ever talks about: If your color swatch contains ANYTHING other than a % of Black, it is going to print a hue of something other than grey. If your Color Swatch has a higher % of Magenta, then it will print pink, if it has a higher % of Cyan, than it will typically print green. If it's an RGB color it will be even worse. Even on the newer machines with Light Black inks, unless you are using a Pantone Swatch that is certified as a spot color in your RIP software, its coming out the wrong color if it has any CM or Y in the swatch.

 

[ColorCrest]

It's all in the settings.
Try these versaworks settings:
Vinyl: [8c] Generic Vinyl 1
Preset: Custom
Simulation Target Profiles
• RGB: AdobeRGB1998
• CMYK: USWebCoatedSWOP
Matching Method
• Raster: Absolute
• Vector: Absolute
Preserve Primary Colors: Checked
Use Embedded ICC Profile: Unchecked

You should realize that having the last step of "Use Embedded ICC Profile: Unchecked" negates those color profile settings you've specified earlier.

 

[garyroy]

Did you try printing all of the CMYK's as swatches? For example:
CMYK 10%, CMYK 20%, CMYK 30%...etc.
Then look at them close, maybe post a pic so others can see.
Also try printing them as "Sign&Display" and Pre-Press U.S. and MaxImpact.
This will take a little testing. Be patient. Which results are best?f you can't get what you want, you definitely need a custom profile to start from.
One of my Rolands prints perfect grays, the other one, not so hot, so I always default to one machine when running grays.
In the "Quality " tab there is also a selection to "Specify profile and Ignore default". You might have to try that.
Sometimes this is an after hours experiment, it might take a few hours.
You have to experiment a little bit. This is the stuff they never show you in the sales brouchure or videos, OR at the trade shows.

 

[ColorCrest]

Here is the common issue with grey tones on CMYK that no one ever talks about:

Grey tones have been discussed and explained many times here...

https://www.signs101.com/threads/newbie-needing-help-with-greys.164854/post-1530605

https://www.signs101.com/threads/pr...-saturation-color-setting.147114/post-1380961

...and many others.

 

[Humble PM]

Human eyes are really good at picking up shifts in neutrals, particularly light neutrals. Years ago, I spent a lot of time printing B&W negatives (large format tech pan and medium format APX25) on RA4 colour paper. A change of 1/2 a point in magenta (scale 0-160) could swing a print from pink to green, with neutral inbetween. Pulled an all nighter printing 20x24 prints. Once the sun had risen, the prints that had looked fine under the flourescent lights in the darkroom area were not fine.
If you're trying to get it right after hours, make sure you've invested in Good lights!

Sooner or later, a massive amount of vinyl, and the time to test it will have been money better spent on a photospectrometer, and the time to learn to use it.

 

[spooledUP7]

You should realize that having the last step of "Use Embedded ICC Profile: Unchecked" negates those color profile settings you've specified earlier.

Hmm, I always thought "Use Embedded ICC Profile" was the ICC profile actually embedded within the document. Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flexi all have the options to embed ICC profiles. I have always kept this feature unchecked or ignored so that my RIP overrides the embedded. Are you sure you have it correct?

 

[spooledUP7]

Did you try printing all of the CMYK's as swatches? For example:
CMYK 10%, CMYK 20%, CMYK 30%...etc.
Then look at them close, maybe post a pic so others can see.
Also try printing them as "Sign&Display" and Pre-Press U.S. and MaxImpact.
This will take a little testing. Be patient. Which results are best?f you can't get what you want, you definitely need a custom profile to start from.
One of my Rolands prints perfect grays, the other one, not so hot, so I always default to one machine when running grays.
In the "Quality " tab there is also a selection to "Specify profile and Ignore default". You might have to try that.
Sometimes this is an after hours experiment, it might take a few hours.
You have to experiment a little bit. This is the stuff they never show you in the sales brouchure or videos, OR at the trade shows.

I have tried everything, every shade and colorspace. The only thing that remotely works is to create a custom spot color, but when I enable the RIP to use the custom spot, the dithering goes to hell and I get grainy prints. The settings I shared work for now, but like another member mentioned, a custom ICC profile is the way to go.

 

[ColorCrest]

Hmm, I always thought "Use Embedded ICC Profile" was the ICC profile actually embedded within the document. Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flexi all have the options to embed ICC profiles. I have always kept this feature unchecked or ignored so that my RIP overrides the embedded. Are you sure you have it correct?

The embedded ICC profiles in the print document is there for a very important reason. The profiles provides necessary "input" data for a RIP to translate to the "output" ICC profile of the printer.

If the embedded ICC profile is say, Adobe RGB, the RIP will know the equal values of R, G, B in the document will represent dead neutral tones; black-through-grays-to-white, with a definite luminosity of the middle gray of 128, 128, 128 when printed. Setting the gray values in common RGB color spaces of design / print documents is easy because equal values of RGB are meant to reproduce neutrals. Although the sRGB color space uses equal values to represent gray, color values in the document will not necessarily produce the same as an Adobe RGB profiled document. Again, the RIP needs know what profile is used as the input space. So, don't use a setting which will ignore the profiles unless you're sure why to use the control.

CMYK color spaces are not so simple because the individual channel values are not equal to represent neutrals.

 

[spooledUP7]

The embedded ICC profiles in the print document is there for a very important reason. The profiles provides necessary "input" data for a RIP to translate to the "output" ICC profile of the printer.

If the embedded ICC profile is say, Adobe RGB, the RIP will know the equal values of R, G, B in the document will represent dead neutral tones; black-through-grays-to-white, with a definite luminosity of the middle gray of 128, 128, 128 when printed. Setting the gray values in common RGB color spaces of design / print documents is easy because equal values of RGB are meant to reproduce neutrals. Although the sRGB color space uses equal values to represent gray, color values in the document will not necessarily produce the same as an Adobe RGB profiled document. Again, the RIP needs know what profile is used as the input space. So, don't use a setting which will ignore the profiles unless you're sure why to use the control.

CMYK color spaces are not so simple because the individual channel values are not equal to represent neutrals.

I will do some testing to confirm this. Thank you.

 

[Mike Paul]

I print 95% vector files on my VersaCamm mostly for truck lettering. Try these settings.
Grays come out great. No Green grays. I prefer to tell / force the printer what color I want than the software trying to change it...

My previous settings printed decent grays but once you laminated the print and take them outside in the sun the grays turn a weird unacceptable light olive color like so many experience here over the years.

 

[netsol]

Human eyes are really good at picking u

I print 95% vector files on my VersaCamm mostly for truck lettering. Try these settings.
Grays come out great. No Green grays. I prefer to tell / force the printer what color I want than the software trying to change it...

My previous settings printed decent grays but once you laminated the print and take them outside in the sun the grays turn a weird unacceptable light olive color like so many experience here over the years.

Mike, you do realize he has a different printer, different inks, different substrates, etc

 

[Mike Paul]

Of course.

 

[Mike Paul]

 

[netsol]

no doubt your settings do a decent job of making the printer a bit more forgiving, but, to me, you should always make your own
profiles. it would be like if you gave me your latest EKG and i told the doctor to use it, and not bother me with testing. (no actually
that's a bad example, i MIGHT actually do that)

 

[Mike Paul]

That’s a stretch lol
I agree, make your own profiles if needed.
Like I said earlier 95% of my work is truck lettering so I print on Cast film and laminate,
Really don’t need to change a profile. Colors come out the same on Calendared vinyl