feedback with New Cadet & Signlab7

[J. Hulme]

quote Higgi29:

Hi folks,
The one thing Iam having a problem with is the colour pallett. on screen looksnothing like what comes out of the machine if you print spot colours..
I have tried using some of the built in manufacturers pallets, We use a lot of Mac Tac 9800 so I loaded their 9800 colour pallett in and did a test print.. Nothing like… anyone any advice on correcting this. I am not very technical as far as pc’s go so please try and keep it simple… Cheers
Ian

Sounds like the MacTac pallete is a vinyl pallette, you may need to load a CMYK pallette expecially for the inks you are using, you may also have to calibrate the monitor to your output, I never bothered , but I assume Rodney will definately know how this is done 😉

[autosign]

Don’t they give training when they install it?

I wondered what these machines are like for vinyl cutting too? Are people using them for both or still keeping their cutter?

[Ian Higgins]

Thanks for that,
I have calabrated the monitor as best as I could.
I understand what you are saying about the RGB and CY colours, Ionly loaded the Mac Tac one tosee if it was anything like.
I have done a little bit of mixing CMYK to try and get a pantone match using a referance chart but still pretty bleak..
Cheers anyway
Ian

[Robert Lambie]

im not sure on this one.. andrew has been the one matching pantones etc but we are using the troop software, which andrew says is a doddle to work. maybe if he sees this post later tonight he may reply and give a bit more help on that.. sorry 😕

[Ian Higgins]

Yes there was some training, but it is a case of how much can you take in untill the brain burns out….
I am using it for both cutting and printing but will use my old cutter for most stuff untill it dies..

[Rodney Gold]

2 files to download are the pantone eps charts at http://www.pantone.com under support and the colorchip chart at http://www.rolanddga.com also under support.
You print these on the media using the profile of your choice. You can compare the pantone print to actual swatches to see how the printer treats these and to get the right shade as close as possible when printing , and you can look at your monitor and compare what you see to what was printed so as to get close in terms of matching the monitor to the printer.
Ultimately , you want a what you see is what you get scenario.
A lot of how you colour match depends on the design package and what colour space you are in and how it treats various color models and a huge amount depends on the RIP
A cmyk printer can only print 7 colours so the rip has to lay down these 7 colours in various spacing permutations to fool the eye as to representing a colour it cant print
A 1440 dpi printer actually prints at about 150 “dpi” , it has to use these 1440 dots to make up cells which represent a pixel colour , so its actually “cells” per inch that count.
What the biggest problem is , is that most of the stuff you work with is RGB , IE RED GREEN BLUE , and if you add these 3 colours you get white , CMY added make black , one is an additive system and the other is a subtractive and the printer has to do a transform to get from one to the other. In terms of RGB , cmyk cannot actually represent all colours and shades the RGB can and has various strategies in terms of how it reproduces out of gamut colours (colours it cant print). These strategies also determine how the thing prints specific colours and changing them alters things.
The real fly in the ointment is the fact that one really has to print these charts for EVERY profile on all medias , as even changing resolution within a profile changes colour.
At the end of it all , you can agonize over colour and get the the nth degree or you can just get close. Most customers are happy with close and vibrant rather than spot on and dull.

[Ian Higgins]

Thanks Rodney,
as ever very informative..
I don’t know how you find the time for allthe posts you reply to. The rip is the one built in to signlab 7 tweaked for the cadet i think..
Cheers again

[RayW]

In what way are the colours wrong ? Are the printed colours too bright or to dull?

Ray

[Ian Higgins]

Hi Ray,
They are too dull…Reds are more like a burgandy… have been doing a little playing and getting better.. Still not as I would want though.
Cheers
Ian