VS-540 Greys printing Pink

[TurboGraphics77]

im new to the printing world, have printed some things and come out perfect, scratching my head as to if im saving files wrong or im doing something wrong, use cmyk?

depending on what im printing, some things that have any grey or shadows of grey print pink or shades of pink, print head tests are good, perfect prints no missing nozzles
i have manually decreased magenta in versa works it makes it better, i print on signs and display

very frustrated hope to get some answers thanks

 

[netsol]

get an xrite I1 or similar spectro & start building profiles for your commonly used materials

 

[signheremd]

Grays are the most difficult colors to print using CMYK. It is normal to have them tend toward pink when they are warm toned. Best thing to do is print a bunch of grays and save in Flexi (or whatever design program you use) the ones that you know print well. Understand that to build the gray color the RIP software uses a percentage of each CMYK. While you expect it to use black for blacks and for grays, it does not - as low as 10% Magenta will make a gray pink. Hope that helps you

 

[Roland Certified Tech]

Please post a picture of the nozzle test print.
also, this is a common issue with the VS with ESL3 ink and the profiles.
you should work in RGB.
you can print the Roland Color Chart from VW to see how all colors print including greys, and then use the RVW colors in your design program, Corel (built in) Flexi (built in) or Illustrator (need to import).

 

[guillermo]

I do have still an RE 640 and I have the same issue, but it has been like this since about 5 years ago, we replaced the print head and it work really well for about 1 year. We barely use it now, because we have an HP latex printer, and we started to get the same issue, we called for service and technician was laughing because the problem was the print heads, when they go over the "printing life" you need to replace them, even if the test print is great, he did replace the print heads and the first test was great, all gray gradients were perfect. Not saying that you need to replace a printhead, but just for reference.

 

[Solventinkjet]

At the end of the day, the issue is improper head linearization. Printheads, even brand new ones, don't print perfectly out of the box without calibrating them. So when you send 50% magenta to print, your head might be printing 45% for example. That's what linearization fixes. So, without getting a spectro and linearizing/making a custom profile, you're going to be stuck tweaking CMYK values and running into this issue over and over again.

 

[Proofread People]

im new to the printing world, have printed some things and come out perfect, scratching my head as to if im saving files wrong or im doing something wrong, use cmyk?

depending on what im printing, some things that have any grey or shadows of grey print pink or shades of pink, print head tests are good, perfect prints no missing nozzles
i have manually decreased magenta in versa works it makes it better, i print on signs and display

very frustrated hope to get some answers thanks

I had to have therapy after years of trying to hit a gradient greys, soft beige. Try doing a % of solid black. Greys are the worst with Roland or HP's but since we moved to a Canon Colorado UV Gel, cake walk

 

[netsol]

I had to have therapy after years of trying to hit a gradient greys, soft beige. Try doing a % of solid black. Greys are the worst with Roland or HP's but since we moved to a Canon Colorado UV Gel, cake walk

not to beat a dead horse. BUY A SPECTRO

your signs would all be crooked as well, if you refused to buy a level

IN TRUTH, all your colors are off.
just not enough to stop people in their tracks, like when the grey comes out pink

 

[Jharris81]

for years a tried to stay away from anything that was grey. I couldn't count the hours I put into trying to fix the issue. I had tried it all. Granted I dont know a lot about color theory or any of that stuff other than what I learned in high school art class. I came across some articles about color curves and was able to get it close but was still off, especially in certain light. We never really have jobs that require spot on color but I knew it was off and I could only do so much. After making sure all your mechanical parts are in order and it still does not resolve the issue..... x-rite and profile. It is a rather large expense but I ran it one time and can print grey every single time. from light to dark.

 

[netsol]

what rip do you use?
we have SEVERAL i1'S and would lend you one
the device only operates native (no other software needed) in flexi, though as far as i know

 

[cornholio]

More often than not, it's the ink pigment concentration that changes over time, when it's not agitated or used up in short time.
The Epson piezo heads are quite Uniform in drop sizes. I only remember one case i had to replace a head, because of huge difference in drop sizes.(All the colors were off, alltough i entered the head rank correctly. After replacing it with the next new head, everything was good again. Roland replaced the head for free)
Most customers don't want to invest in color management... It's not the hardware, it's mostly the needed knowledge, they are afraid of.