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Author Topic: Print color  (Read 5564 times)

enduser

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Print color
« on: March 26, 2018, 04:41:12 am »

When I print this  it always comes out with a magenta border - profiled, or printer manages color.
 
The actual border is grey. It's a color chart with many color squares surrounded by a border. The original, from the web, has a wide surrounding border which is grey on my monitor, grey on a different color calibrated monitor, but prints with a strong magenta cast.  The central colors all print true.

What's going on? Thanks.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2018, 07:12:25 am by enduser »
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mearussi

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Re: Print color
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2018, 07:28:11 am »

Most printers have a great deal of difficulty producing a perfectly neutral gray even when the original file is perfect since they usually a little colored ink to try to balance it out.

Have you checked whether it's actually a perfectly neutral gray?

Also, which printer and printing software are you using? 





 
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Garnick

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Re: Print color
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2018, 07:40:43 am »

When I print this  it always comes out with a magenta border - profiled, or printer manages color.
 
The actual border is grey. It's a color chart with many color squares surrounded by a border. The original, from the web, has a wide surrounding border which is grey on my monitor, grey on a different color calibrated monitor, but prints with a strong magenta cast.  The central colors all print true.

What's going on? Thanks.

It would be helpful if you could attach a shot of the actual print, so that we can see the magenta border.  I agree that a totally neutral grey is rather difficult for any printer, but I have never experienced the issue you have described with any of my wide format printers.  Along with a shot of the print, please answer the questions "mearussi" posed.  I'll add another question - under what light source are you viewing the printed version?

Gary
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Gary N.
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kers

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Re: Print color
« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2018, 09:00:39 am »

if you cut part of the grey border and put it in a blank paper is it still magenta?
IOW could it be your vision is influenced by the other strong colours? and the grey border is actually grey?
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Print color
« Reply #4 on: March 26, 2018, 09:24:14 am »

Most printers have a great deal of difficulty producing a perfectly neutral gray even when the original file is perfect since they usually a little colored ink to try to balance it out.

Have you checked whether it's actually a perfectly neutral gray?

Also, which printer and printing software are you using?

Good questions to ask, but your first statement is both true and not true, depending. "perfectly neutral gray" means that the a* and b* values of a read "gray" patch are both 0. This seldom happens throughout the grayscale because as you say the printers aren't perfect. However, the deviations from 0 can be small enough to be imperceptible to human eyes even though the spectrophotometer reads the value of the deviation. Technically deviations below dE 1.0 are supposed to be imperceptible to humans. I have produced plenty of grayscales that average dE far less than 1.0 in the a* or b* channels, with maximum deviations being contained within the range of 1.0 or so. Normally, the good profiles I test show better performance of the grayscale than of the colour channels. 

There isn't enough information yet to diagnose the O/P's problem.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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digitaldog

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Re: Print color
« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2018, 12:59:34 pm »

When I print this  it always comes out with a magenta border - profiled, or printer manages color.
First, test this with a color reference image just so we know it's not in your document: http://www.digitaldog.net/files/2014PrinterTestFileFlat.tif.zip

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enduser

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Re: Print color
« Reply #6 on: March 26, 2018, 10:12:52 pm »

I've put up three images. The first is as printed.  The second is a print of Digital Dog's image showing (amongst other errors) - magenta in many images but not between images. The third is the Qimage nozzle check - no evidence of bad color mixing.
This is a 24" roll equipped HP Designjet of only MCYK inks that has been faultless until now.

Photos of prints were shot on an EOS camera, outdoors in overcast conditions. Prints are on pollycotton canvas but look the same on a variety of papers. Printed using a couple of icc profiles they look the same. These prints were done using "Printer/driver manages color" by Qimage.  The blues look better using the printer driver. We've been using Qimage for over ten years on a variety of wide format machine from Canon to HP.
Phew!
« Last Edit: March 26, 2018, 10:35:53 pm by enduser »
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digitaldog

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Re: Print color
« Reply #7 on: March 26, 2018, 11:46:50 pm »

My test image is WAY off! Clogged nozzle?
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Schewe

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Re: Print color
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2018, 02:30:59 am »

When I print this  it always comes out with a magenta border - profiled, or printer manages color.

Printing light and with a magenta cast is a sign of double color management while printing dark and with a green cast is a sign of no color management. Your issue seem to indicate double color management (applying management in both the application and the print driver0). What exactly are your print settings?
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Rhossydd

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Re: Print color
« Reply #9 on: March 27, 2018, 04:03:22 am »

Almost certainly double profiled and, looking at the digital dog test image, a blocked nozzle or two.
First use the printer driver's own utility to run a nozzle check and clean. Once you're sure the printer is working correctly go through the settings and ensure you only apply a profile one. Either apply a profile in Qimage with the driver set to no colour management or not applying a profile in Qimage and using the driver to colour manage.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Print color
« Reply #10 on: March 27, 2018, 09:15:56 am »

Printing light and with a magenta cast is a sign of double color management while printing dark and with a green cast is a sign of no color management. Your issue seem to indicate double color management (applying management in both the application and the print driver0). What exactly are your print settings?

Jeff - "enduser" says he's getting this effect whether he uses Application or Printer Color Management, if I read correctly. In the case of the latter is it possible to have double colour management? I would think not, but please advise.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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digitaldog

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Re: Print color
« Reply #11 on: March 27, 2018, 10:31:41 am »

Jeff - "enduser" says he's getting this effect whether he uses Application or Printer Color Management, if I read correctly. In the case of the latter is it possible to have double colour management? I would think not, but please advise.
My thought too, hence the idea it's the printer hardware rather than the user. The massive banding I see in my reference file seems to indicate not all inks are hitting the paper.
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Schewe

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Re: Print color
« Reply #12 on: March 27, 2018, 12:55:17 pm »

Jeff - "enduser" says he's getting this effect whether he uses Application or Printer Color Management, if I read correctly.

Actually what he wrote was, uh, not very usefull in determination of anything...

The op needs to indicate that hat printer, OS, application and the settings used. Otherwise it’s a guessing game and I already guessed (prolly correctly :-)
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Print color
« Reply #13 on: March 27, 2018, 01:27:23 pm »

Actually what he wrote was, uh, not very usefull in determination of anything...

The op needs to indicate that hat printer, OS, application and the settings used. Otherwise it’s a guessing game and I already guessed (prolly correctly :-)

We know it's an HP Design Jet, OP is using QImage for printing with Printer Manages Color. That's a start, but I agree, not enough information to diagnose anything really, so you're right it is a guessing game. It's happening all too often that posters are asking other Forum members to help analyze/resolve printing issues without providing all the basic information needed to  to do so - let's see how it evolves.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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enduser

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Re: Print color
« Reply #14 on: March 27, 2018, 08:47:29 pm »

Well it's Windows 10.  The comments so far lead me to think it's a hardware issue, probably the head, or possibly double profiling. I doubt the latter having been using this printer for three years using Qimage. With Qimage the automated job log means that what you printed in the past is always available down to the smallest detail of the whole job, and in this case the resulting images are heavily magenta. When last printed they weren't.

We know about using profiles and whether printer or Qimage manages color etc.
Thanks to all for the comments.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Print color
« Reply #15 on: March 27, 2018, 08:54:15 pm »

That does lean in the direction of a printer issue - some problem creating ink delivery failure; printing with a magenta bias suggests an inadequacy of Cyan and possibly Yellow.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Farmer

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Re: Print color
« Reply #16 on: March 28, 2018, 02:17:28 am »

Do a standard printer nozzle check (not the Qimage one).
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Phil Brown

enduser

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Re: Print color
« Reply #17 on: April 17, 2018, 04:13:13 am »

We can get good prints now by using "Printer manages  color" and using Adobe, (not rgb.)  Still get a magenta cast if we use a profile in the application.
The above situation applies in Qimage, Lightroom and Paint Shop Pro.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Print color
« Reply #18 on: April 17, 2018, 08:48:49 am »

Then it leans back in the direction of a profiling issue.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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enduser

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Re: Print color
« Reply #19 on: April 17, 2018, 09:30:52 pm »

Absolutely agree, Mark.  There's a lengthy post on the Qimage forum where there is some discussion about a Windows 10 update being the culprit. Apparently Microsoft are looking at a fix! Is it Win 10, will they fix it?Who knows but at least we've got a usable workaround.  Using printer managing color gives a surprisingly good result.
Thanks for you interest.
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