Colour too dark on c6500

[dagoof]

Having a bit of a colour issue on a recently acquired c6500 with ic303 - it had been previously calibrated but I'm finding most of the colours are just a little too dark. Running the driver at 85% brightness gets it closer to the intended colours but not in all cases - in one instance on an RGB graphic with 2 shades of orange, one shade comes out fine but the darker shade is coming out red, and the brightness setting isn't helping.

[RRodgers]

How many days since it wasast calibrated? I always say, if the color is off calibrate, customer says I calibrated last week, I ask "are the colors off? They say yes. Then I got back too, if the colors are off then calibrate. LoL

[dagoof]

Heh, fair enough RR - it's been a few weeks since calibrated, only done maybe 5k since and been running reg and gamma adjusts so didn't think it would have strayed that far. Tbh I think the colour was off from the start though. Don't have access to a densitometer to calibrate unfortunately - is there anything I can do without one?

[RRodgers]

Heh, fair enough RR - it's been a few weeks since calibrated, only done maybe 5k since and been running reg and gamma adjusts so didn't think it would have strayed that far. Tbh I think the colour was off from the start though. Don't have access to a densitometer to calibrate unfortunately - is there anything I can do without one?

Do you have the color cal strips? I don't think the 6500's came with the Kodak one's I think they came with something else. You can get some off ebay if you don't have them. They are a MUST HAVE! But a densitometer is ideal and I would spend the money on one of those if you want your color right. Be sure to get an ES 1000 (made by Fiery)

Oops, didn't see them on ebay but Amazon has them and the price isn't too bad. BE SURE your optics are clean before using these! If you are not a tech, get one. If it's a color box, GET A GOOD ONE! I can't tell you how much business we've taken because the tech that was working on the machine didn't know sqwat about color.

Link
http://www.amazon.com/Kodak-Color-Separation-Guide-Scale/dp/B00009R7G9/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319547321&sr=8-1
Good luck

[dagoof]

Managed to dig out the Kodak one, thanks RR - just sent a quick query by PM!

[dagoof]

nvm, found it!

[dagoof]

Just wanted to give this a little bump - have done color cals using the Kodak strips but didn't really see any improvement.
I've got blue's that are getting closer to black, oranges closer to red, and my greys have too much warmth in them, almost brown sometimes!

I've read that changing the reg assy. on older boxes can really help, but hoping it won't come to that yet - unfortunately, won't get hold of an es-1000 anytime soon either. Is there anything I can do to 'trick' a little more brightness further than the 85% on driver?

[P-Man]

I'm very new to this as an end user so take it for what it's worth. When we have a problem like this on our c8000 or Ricoh C900s we go into the device center on our command workstation, go to resources, and them spot color and manual adjust the CMYK values. It may work or it may not but it's worth a try and has always worked for us even when our es-1000 hasnt been able to get it just right.

[dagoof]

Thanks P-man, I'll give it a go. It's possible it may even be a profile/software issue (I use an old-ass version of Pagemaker a lot of the time!). Was also looking at the printer gamma offset adj though, and some of the values are pretty far adjusted!

[inutelkamo]

hi..

Just want to share, this is problem i had encountered once.. The normal color of output, is probably 10-20% darker to image printed last month..

I also calibrated the unit with color cal and it didn't work, say no improvement..

but, when i change the color registration unit, it all fix up..

it was not my intention to replace it, i just tried..

Hope this one will give some help..

I know all c6500's had different solution sometimes..

[RRodgers]

hi..

Just want to share, this is problem i had encountered once.. The normal color of output, is probably 10-20% darker to image printed last month..

I also calibrated the unit with color cal and it didn't work, say no improvement..

but, when i change the color registration unit, it all fix up..

it was not my intention to replace it, i just tried..

Hope this one will give some help..

I know all c6500's had different solution sometimes..

Now that you mention it, I believe there was a tech bulletin about color's being off and to change the color reg unit. Glad you got it sorted. You still should calibrate it once a week though, be sure the otpics are clean if you are using the Cal strips.