can anyone help with profile problem with mimaki please?

[Craig Hudson]

Hi,

This sounds as if it is a problem with the input/output profiles from your RIP rather than a problem with the printer.

What RIP are you using?

I’m only familiar with ONYX but to test this I would first create a grad as a greyscale file in Photoshop or similar. I’d open this in Onyx and turn OFF all input profiles. I would move my mouse over the gradient and see that it was made up only of K, the CMY values would remain as zero. I’d print this with the output profile for whatever media was on the machine, and I should see a white to grey grad.

Sadly, I probably wouldn’t like it as using just the one ink doesn’t create the nicest output.

I’d then go back to photoshop and convert the grad to RGB. I’d save it as a tif, embedding my working space profile. Opening this file in Onyx I’d select the relevant input profile (use tif’s embedded profile) and I’d run the print with the same output profile as previous.

If I now see the black to tan gradient, I know that the issue is the output profile’s handling of greys. I could try a quick fix by using another output profile for a similar media. I could ask the manufacturer if they have encountered this and see if they have another profile. Or I could take the tedious route of writing a new profile for the media, focusing specifically on the greys.

Best of luck.

Regards,
Craig

[David Rowland]

so if your using a design program like corel to make a fade, we would fade a fountain from C0% M0% Y0% K100% to C0% M0% Y0% K0% , what do you get? Another way and more correct way is ‘tinting’ a pantone, so fade from say Pantone Cool Black 7 100% tint to Pantone Cool Black 7 1% tint

If you are fading from one colour to another colour then you are either asking it to go through the RGB or CMYK palette to find its way there.

[Bill McMurtry]

Sounds like a profile problem. Neutral grey’s, when made from a mix of all colours, are hard to achieve unless your colour profile is spot on.

[David Rowland]

after re-reading your right Bill. On shiraz you have two buttons, Preview and Proof, the Proof is the actual Dots it will output to the head and preview is to check the file for dodgys.