Find Color Managed Large-Format Printer - Adobe Color Management

Kenny,

A little feedback.....

Since I expect to need similar services myself in the future, I recently made a visit to Calaway Systems to meet Richard Brackin and survey the capabilities of their facility. I found Richard to be extremely well versed and highly skilled in color management. Their VuTeks are well calibrated and profiled and they provide a wide color gamut and unbelievably rich, dark blacks. He even printed a job for me while I was there and I found the colors to be an excellent match. This is important to me because I am well versed in color management myself and have high standards. They have a very large shop with a ton of equipment and do a lot of high level work for many big name companies that we all have heard of. They have a very broad scope of capabilities and equipment. I was impressed and will use them when the need arises. For what it's worth, they are also ISO9001 certified.

When I suggested you check them out in an earlier post, I had never met or used them, and for the record, I have no vested interest or connection with them. I was just impressed by the knowledge and quality of Richard's posts. It sounded like they might be what you were looking for.

Best of luck,

Lou Dina

Yeah thanks,
I believe Richard's company was included in the bids, and they may be one of 4 companies doing a test print to see who does the best job. It's being handled by the fabricator now. Once we see the test prints from the 4 different companies, we'll be able to tell what shop is fully color-managed and well dialed-in, and what shop(s) still need some work.

Thanks everyone for all of the help and suggestions! I'm really hoping at least one of the test prints will come back looking great and matching what we designed. Then the rest of the job 'should' be a slam-dunk!

Concerning the machines, I think I've found out lately that there is a new HP (8000s or 9000s) that is a solvent-based inkjet that has excellent color saturation and gamut, and decent resolution (720dpi). They've only been out less than a year, so there's probably not a lot of people who have them yet, but they are apparently just an updated version of a Seiko machine (which was reported to be best-in-class for resolution). HP formed a partnership with Seiko a couple years ago, and this is probably the first product from that. I'm not sure if any of the other large solvent-based inkjets (like Vutek, etc.) have that high of 'true' resolution.

We'll see what happens...

Hi- we've just at the end of a process of evaluation, testing etc and the HP 9000 beats the Roland hands down...absolutely not even close- great colours but a bit more expensive- apples with apples it's about 10k dearer (A$). Profiles were great. Rip is good and comes with a mini mac with good specs. Expensive warranty if you want anything after 1 year.

But... but when it comes to buying a machine that produces it will be the HP that we end up buying. Funny thing is we were dead set on the Roland initially.

Hi all,
Well we got our first color test back today from a place here in Los Angeles.

The overall quality was really good, close to what I've seen from an average HP machine.

The color, however, was 'pretty good'. Not great or completely on by any stretch.

But I have a question concerning 'paper white'. On this test print I was noticing that areas that should be pure white had a distinct light cyan or green tint. I didn't think the vinyl was that off-white, so I looked at it under a loop and sure enough there is definitely ink down on the white areas - mostly cyan with some yellow.

- What part of the color conversion process (from my CMYK SWOP files) would cause an area of pure white (no color information at all) to produce a light wash of color (maybe 1-2% cyan and 1% yellow)?

- Could this be adjusted/avoided easily?

- Is this to be expected when converting a file from one profile (CMYK SWOP) to another (most likely custom profile for their printer)?

Thanks a lot. I'm guessing that this is causing other colors to shift as well. I have a call into the company to ask them, but wanted some outside opinions as well.

Kenny,

If your CMYK SWOP file had areas where CMYK values were 0C,0M,0Y,0K, then those areas should have printed with zero ink, giving you a pure white (or more accurately, the color of the paper base). This service provider probably converted the file (separately or during the printing process) using Absolute Colorimetric rendering intent, so the conversion would cause ink to be laid down in the pure white portions of the print in an attempt to simulate a different paper white that the substrate they were using. I don't know why they would do this unless the white of their substrate is very different from notmal. This may be okay when doing a proof for press perhaps, but I prefer not to use AbsCol rendering during conversions, since it slightly reduces contrast (since you are darkening the pure whites ever so slightly) and it also looks a bit funny with the extra ink in pure white areas. You have to trim all white borders from the print to fool your eyes, since the eye will hone in on the lightest white for "calibration". White areas on a border will make your printed "whites" look dull and dirty in comparison.

I usually use relative colorimetric rendering even for digital proofing for jobs going to press and try to choose a proofing paper that is close in color temp to the final output. For press work, for example, I use a proofing paper with approximately 5000K paper white, which is close the the final paper used to output the job. I find this much more accurate and pleasing, and if there is a slight difference in paper white between the proof and the final job, it is easy to see, explain and accept this very minor difference.

Of course, if the 'paper white' of the substrate the provider is printing on is VERY different from typical white values (usually between about 4700K and 5300K), then you might notice it in the final print.

I wouldn't normally expect a provider to give me a print or poster using such a rendering intent.

Lou

Thanks Lou for the explanation. I will ask the tech who printed the job what workflow he used.

As this was a test for a final large-format job on vinyl, it is output on the same substrate as the final will be (3M Control Tac), using the same printer, inks, etc. That's the intent of the test, to see what we actually SHOULD expect from the final prints. So it's a bit different than running a proof on a machine before going to press. There 'should' be no accounting for a different paper color, since this 'test' and the final should be exactly the same.

I believe this vinyl has a fairly true white by default. I noticed the 'greenish' cast before I even set a sheet of plain paper next to it. It just became much more obvious when I saw the difference.

Part of this test, though, was to see just how 'on top of' the whole color-management workflow each vendor is by default. We'll see how the other 3 tests come in. We're hoping one of them will be pretty accurate from the get-go. Then we will have much more confidence about the final prints. We can't do any color-correction to compensate for a printer that's not using the best procedures. Just not enough time in the day (or $$$ in the budget).

Thanks.

Kenny,

I am quite new to this forum, so bear with me if I step on toes. I see you mentioned the HP 8000 and 9000s printers. I work for a RIP software house and have had a fairly good amount of time on the 9000s. HP also is selling the 10000 which is similar to the 8 and 9.

Overall I like the 9000s, good speeds and good color all things considered. The Seiko model the 9000 was based off of was quite the workhorse and many people raved about it.

Also the question you raised about paper white and cyan and yellow ink contamination. This can happen with a poorly made profile, and not in the file conversion. The RIP software used should allow the end points to be 'clipped' to prevent this from happening.

I am fairly new to the industry and have been exposed to only one view of the industry and color management (which I have noticed can tend to be close minded at times).

Bryan

Hi Bryan

We're getting an HP 9000 and need to choose between the onyx or shiraz rip. Any advice.

Also I'll be operating the printer from time to time- any tips, tricks and things to watch out for?

Health wise - any adverse effects?

Thanks

Well, we received our second test print from another vendor yesterday. This was also printed on a Seiko machine. The quality of these prints, considering it is on vinyl with solvent inks, etc., is really quite good. It's not quite what you see with an HP 5000 on paper, but much better than what we've seen in the past for solvent-based printers.

Now this second printout was MUCH closer in color. In fact, when I brought the print in and compared with my calibrated monitor, it was an almost perfect match! And this was after the matte laminate had been applied.

Now this second company actually markets themselves and speciallizes in everything color. They started as a pre-press house, and do retouching, color correction, image compositing, package mock-ups, etc. I think they may only have the one Seiko, plus a few HP 5000's for large-format output. So they are 'color first - output second' from what I can tell.

So it really shows how much of a difference proper knowledge and implementation of color management standards can make in outputting a product SO much closer to the original design intent! And the first company is a pretty highly regarded vendor here in LA, doing a lot of entertainment-related business, etc.

I'll let everyone know how the final product turns out after we make our final choice!