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  #1  
Old 07-11-2012, 09:40 AM
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Bionic Modeler Bionic Modeler is offline
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Printer Not printing true reds

I was printing the Ford Tri Motor and found that the red is not true to the screen. I want the vivid red and I am getting a reddish burgandy. Can anyone help me fix this?
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Old 07-11-2012, 12:48 PM
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Calibrating your printer, screen, and scanner

you might start here""................or search "calibrate printer."

Good luck
Sfx
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Old 07-11-2012, 01:56 PM
Golden Bear Golden Bear is offline
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The actual answer is, no you cannot.

I have worked almost 20 years as an engineer with inkjet, so I do know about these things.

Inks are made to be Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. By mixing these, the different colors are created. Note that it is Magenta and not Red. The properties of the ink as a fluid must be tweaked in order to work in the firing system it is designed for. One result is that the inks no longer are "perfect" cyan, magenta and yellow, but colors more or less near to them.

Depending upon the properties desired for the inks, like lightfastness or water resistness, they wind up drifting to a point that is "as good as we can get" for the entire system.

During all this color map people are working with these inks and colors, figuring out how to lay down the ink so that it makes certain colors on paper. At the same time, they calculate the Color Space that the ink set can achieve. All ink sets are poor for Red. Part of this is the result of the factors I have mentioned and part is in the nature of red itself. In late prehistoric days people wanted to paint with red and tried things like specular hematite, a mineral which occurs in small quantities in nature. It has the drawback that it is very toxic. Almost all reds that are produced in a "safe" manner are thus very unstable and tend to fade in light and change color very quickly.

In any case, there are limits to the color map that can be achieved with any ink set. The result is that you can certainly draw almost any color on your computer screen but when you print it out the printer driver will match it to the closest that it can reach according to the instruction set that was built up by the color engineers.

Usually, if you use a straight "red" from a drawing program it will come out with the best red it can deliver... frequently a reddish pink. As soon as you try to move away from that point, perhaps to a maroon for a ship's hull, it will deliver a muddy reddish brown. I experimented with this by making a sheet of small steps in color away from "red" to maroon. At some point it quickly shifts from the reddish pink and into the muddy brown.

Having said this, Epson uses piezoelectric drop ejection which has allowed them to use pigments forever. HP and Canon are both shifting to pigmented colors. Pigments should allow a better Color Gamut than dyes. Nevertheless there are still obvious sacrifices made to the printed red for fade resistance and lightfastness and these sacrifices continue to limit the quality of reds that can be generated.


Carl
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Old 07-11-2012, 03:19 PM
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You might try changing the paper settings. I found that selecting "glossy photo paper" when using normal paper gave me entirely different colors. It might not be the color you're looking for and it uses a lot of ink but it's worth a try.
Wayne
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Old 07-11-2012, 08:59 PM
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Paper will make a bigger change than you ever thought...i printed paper-replika.com's Vespa scooter on three different papers and got from dark brown-red to very bright rose looking red, same file same printer.....totally different....Rich
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Old 07-11-2012, 09:23 PM
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Don't forget that printing from a PDF can also change colors. When I do a print from autocad to create a PDF file, I turn the color managment off in the PDF settings.

RBG uses three colors to create black, CYMK uses black ink to make black. RBG = red, blue, green colors. CYMK = cyan, yellow, magenta, black. Check to see how your printer converts colors. PDF usually use the RBG way.

Another issue is, do you have the latest drivers? This can cause issues.

Before I print a new model, I print a test sheet with red, orange, green, black, blue and yellow lines that are a 1/4" wide and 1 inch long. This shows if any of the print heads are clogged and need cleaning.

Instead of using the "clean printheads" setting, I just do a page of text in the offending color (the one that isn't showing up on the test print). The page of text needs to be set to the highest quality= "best" not normal or draft.

By using the "best" the printheads allow full flow of the ink. This way you don't waste the other inks doing a clean-printhead operation, just the color that isn't working right.

This way of cleaning the issue was posted on a different thread by someone else, just can't remmeber who, but I truely want to thank them as this method really works well for saving ink.

What Richkat is saying is very true. Brightness is how a particular paper reflects back when placed under a specific type of blue light. A brightness of 92 is way differnt than 96 and 82 paper almost looks yellow when compared to a 96.

Mike
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Old 07-11-2012, 10:43 PM
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Gil Gil is offline
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Color Matching

Regretfully I must inform you that you will become stark raving mad if you pursue the perfect saturated red print color with an inkjet printer....,

As Golden Bear stated earlier this is just not attainable with an inkjet printer. Follow his suggestion of getting as close as possible then give up.

Your hair count will be better for it...,

+Gil
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Old 07-12-2012, 01:15 AM
Karl Karl is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by richkat View Post
Paper will make a bigger change than you ever thought...i printed paper-replika.com's Vespa scooter on three different papers and got from dark brown-red to very bright rose looking red, same file same printer.....totally different....Rich
Ahhh that answers the question I was going to ask.

When I print on normal printer paper, colours are bright but when I print on the card stock I have colours are dull and muted.

Time to try find some new card stock me thinks.
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  #9  
Old 07-12-2012, 07:43 AM
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Rubenandres77 Rubenandres77 is offline
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It is very hard to calibrate the reds in a printer as has been stated above.

Now, the real City of Philadelphia Tri-Motor does not have bright red. It is a dark red/burgundy color, so a dark hue is fine for the model.
Ford Trimotor: tail view - Paper Modelers Gallery

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  #10  
Old 07-12-2012, 10:29 AM
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Bionic Modeler Bionic Modeler is offline
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Wow, it never ceases to amaze me the abundance of smart guys (and gals) in this forum. There is always someone if not many who really know their stuff. This old guy really appreciates it as technology has long since past me by and if it weren't for my friends here I wouldn't know anything. Thanks again to all
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