Best digital print method for saturated reds?

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I've used lightjet for most of my recent jobs.  However, the softproofed version of a very red image of mine just doesn't look very red with the lightjet profiles, despite any procesing trick I know.  Can the most modern inkjets produce the kind of "Coca Cola can red" that I'm looking for?

John

[DarkPenguin]

I don't think my 9180 can.  I'd look for gamut charts and see if your red is in there.

[Scott Martin]

Back in the 90s when I was a drum scan operator we had one of the first Lightjets in North America and we won a volume Coca Cola printing contract because we were the only one's that could hit the color right. In those pre-icc profile days it was a matter of manual color management via custom made RGB color spaces.

Today's inkjets are far more capable of hitting saturated reds but even so, careful attention to color management, excellent icc profiles and the rendering intent used is a must. Your results could possibly be improved with a better lightjet profile via the perceptual intent but switching to a quality inkjet process is probably the easy answer.

[bill t.]

Print a profiling target but with your normal color management turned on.  Look at the red patches, pick the one you like the best, then make sure your reds have the same RGB's.  Or just make a lot of prints until you get your red ignoring everything else, then make some masks and control layers to balance out the rest of the print.  Sounds like you've already done that.

The Epson 78xx and 98xx can do a pretty decent red.  But if you've got a critical color then you have to hit egg-zackley the right density on the print, no printing down or up allowed.  Of course every color print creating system has the same problem.

[Ernst Dinkla]

I've used lightjet for most of my recent jobs.  However, the softproofed version of a very red image of mine just doesn't look very red with the lightjet profiles, despite any procesing trick I know.  Can the most modern inkjets produce the kind of "Coca Cola can red" that I'm looking for?

John

While the latest wide format inkjets and some desktop models with 10 or more inks can make that color (not on all media choices though) there are some tricks like explained in the other messages to get that color consistently correct. On many RIPs you can also separate a certain CMYK or RGB color description in the image, document, and it will print the color with either a custom ink/channel on the printer or use a predefined ink mix combination. That's nice for companies that want strict Pantone matches for logos and vignets. It may not be what you are looking for.

In your case I would check what an Epson R1900 desktop model can do with propper profiling, pigment ink model. Some dye ink models may meet the same red chroma with less inks. I'm not that familiar with Canon desktop models but I think there are some multi hue models there too.


met vriendelijke groeten, Ernst Dinkla

Dinkla Gallery Canvas Wrap Actions for Photoshop
http://www.pigment-print.com/dinklacanvaswraps/index.html

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Thanks everyone for the replies- as usual, a wealth of information.  I went to Calypso Imaging ( http://www.calypsoinc.com ), who use the Epson 11880.  

I pulled down several of their profiles, and the "11880 Premium Luster 2880" profile with perceptual rendering softproofs the reds really well, while keeping the rest of the image looking like it should.  That gamut must be huge!

All I had to do was boost the saturation just a touch (+6) and bump the brightness/contrast a bit with a simple curves adjustment, and I got 99% of what I want- I'd consider that mission accomplished.

Yes!

John