Seiko 64S / FlexiSign Pro 8 / Production Manager

[tiffanykrt]

Any advice on printing reds on a solvent ink printer? I'm running a Seiko Colorpainter 64S with FlexiSign Pro 8.5. I'm not experienced enough to make my own color profiles, so I downloaded some profiles from the Avery website (printing on Avery vinyl) and have been using those. But I just can't get it to print red. It's either too orange or brown. We recently lost our profit on a job because we couldn't get the red color right and had to outsource to a wholesale printer to get it right. I'd really like to learn more about this so it doesn't happen again.

A little background on me...
I'm fairly new to the sign business. Been working here 5 years now, but only running this printer for the last 2 years. My boss has no experience running this thing and made it my job to get it up and running and learn how to use it. So I'm mostly self taught. We purchased it used from another sign company (who took horrible care of it). The Seiko tech worked his magic (spent lots of our money) and got it back in pretty good working order. He's also the one who helped me to learn to use it. So that's about the extent of my knowledge.

Any help would be appreciated

 

[J Hill Designs]

best red is Y100M100 no color correction

search printable pantone, print it with your profiles, and pick one

reds suck

 

[tiffanykrt]

I'm sorry - what is Y100M100? Is that 100% saturation of Yellow and Magenta? Again, I'm really new at messing with color profiles. I turned off the color correction. I do have the pantone color bridge so thats what I was using to tell it what color red to print, but still, none looked good enough. Thanks so much for your help!

 

[J Hill Designs]

no search on here for a printable pantone pdf to ACTUALLY print on your printer using your profiles

 

[d fleming]

Best red you'll get out of a seiko is using rgb... r-255,g-0,b-0.The seiko prints an awesome red.

 

[tiffanykrt]

I figured out what Y100M100 meant... DUH! I'm an idiot. I set that up and the R255 up as reds in my color table - THANKS! What is your take on printing a darker red though? These are just a standard bright red, but the red color I was trying to print (the one we had to outsource) was a deeper red. In terms of vinyl it pretty much matched a 3M Dark Red or an Avery Spectra Red. Not quite a bright red, but not quite a burgundy. It always looked brown when printed. I didn't try turning the color correction off before - I'm going to try it now and see how it prints.

 

[J Hill Designs]

best advise is search for the printable pantone chart (on these forums) and print it out on your printer - that way you know exactly what you will be getting when you chose a pantone color...

 

[tiffanykrt]

I found one and will do just that Thanks again for all your help!

 

[d fleming]

yep

best advise is search for the printable pantone chart (on these forums) and print it out on your printer - that way you know exactly what you will be getting when you chose a pantone color...

 

[gabagoo]

Flexi has colour charts that you can print out and then if you still cant find good reds, try using different profiles until you do.
Make note of all the good colours you find and record how they were done for future use.

 

[boxerbay]

i used to run a 64s. deep dark reds are almost impossible. it is out of gamut using those inks.