Color Matching

[vishop]

Hi everyone,

I have an iR ADV C5250 and C5240 on a client. They are a interior designing company, so they are a bit sensitive with colors. What they have been complaining lately is that the color on the printouts of the machine doesn't match of what is shown on the screen. Is there anyway, thru settings, or calibration or what to make the printouts get as close as possible to what is on their screen? As far as I know it will never match and i keep telling them that, but atleast it could close as possible.

please advise...

Thanks

[zoraldinho]

Re: Color Matching

I would start with drivers. Did you try with PS driver? Try with different colour settings.


Capture.jpg

[vishop]

Re: Color Matching

UFR II driver was initially installed. I recently put the PS driver, haven't explored it much yet.

Thanks for the input.

[zoraldinho]

Re: Color Matching

First make full printer calibration.Check in additional function.

Good luck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw0AOwJRK_Q

[vishop]

Re: Color Matching

Auto Gradation done - it's the first thing i always do before start.

[TonerMunkeh]

Re: Color Matching

This is what I show a customer who complains about colour matching. As much as they may piss and moan, even with a Fiery it simply cannot be matched exactly.

Monitors, On-Screen RGB Color, Color Calibration, and CMYK Color Reproduction Explained

[dan7777]

Re: Color Matching

Hi everyone,

I have an iR ADV C5250 and C5240 on a client. They are a interior designing company, so they are a bit sensitive with colors. What they have been complaining lately is that the color on the printouts of the machine doesn't match of what is shown on the screen. Is there anyway, thru settings, or calibration or what to make the printouts get as close as possible to what is on their screen? As far as I know it will never match and i keep telling them that, but atleast it could close as possible.

please advise...

Thanks

You are correct and I doubt it will ever match. Years ago I had an interior designing company that copied cloth and complained it did not match. You just have to calibrate it and tell them it is business color and they need to buy different machine for better color. Fed EX has the canons now and they use a firey with a spider that matches the colors. Luckily it is not my territory and I only go when main tech is off. I think there is only settings in print driver you could try and change. Samsung put settings in their print drivers to match other manufactures colors. The monitors and copiers use different color schemes and their is a board in the copier that trys and compensate for that. I have a ton of color machines but I am lucky and most customers are not that picky.

[Setright]

Re: Color Matching

Oh my...got yourself a difficult case there vishop!

I work with colour management, and I always try to steer clients clear of expecting the same on screen as on paper. Tonermunkeh has already given us a good link. The RGB vs. CMYK talk is always where I start with clients who expect impossible things from their printers.

If your clients are working in the MS Office package...you have very little hope. If they are using some kind of professional graphic software (like InDesign) you stand a reasonable chance of getting somewhere.
First of all, you need to get the graphics software working in sRGB. Most clients like AdobeRGB because it has a very large colour space, but unfortunately it is much bigger than what any CMYK printer can produce, so many colours will need to be clipped (Relative Colorimetric) or stretched (Perceptual).
sRGB will probably "dull" the colours on the client screen, but remember that to get the printer and screen to match, you have to work on both of them.

You can also try to set the software to work in CMYK on screen, but you will always run into RGB photographs, so this isn't 100% viable. Plus, the screen is an RGB device, so it will only simulate CMYK.

Anyway, this is how I would start configuring the driver setup:

Clipboard_1.pdf


Bear in mind that you need to allow "Printer Color Management" in the grahics software, otherwise the driver settings won't make much difference. You can use the software for dictating colour to the printer, and might even get better results, but I always start with "Printer Manages Colour" or similar wording.



It can be a very long and frustrating operation, just when one of your clients is happy, another will pull a new rabbit out of the hat in the shape of another file format that has a completely different color setup!


Best of luck :-)

[JrTech]

Re: Color Matching

Got to love the ignorance of customers. Any machine classified as "work group" or "departmental" will not do true color matching. Closet you will get is to about 95% of that color without breaking Trademark laws. Pay about $1,000 and you can get Coca Cola 141 red if you so desire. As mentioned in prior posts, a Fiery, Creo (aka Digital Front End) must be present on a Production Line equipment. PS drivers will give you the best options to play with color settings, ie ColorSwap, EuroScale, CMY, RGB. With the Canon only having an interpolated DPI you are very sure not to get the color you need. Client may have to go darker or lighter on screen and see what the machine produces and go from there. You can only calibrate the machine to its capabilities. I am not gonna get a Ford Fucus and think if I put a turbo on there I am gonna race a Porsche even though my speedometer says I can go 130mph (230kmh). I direct customers in this situation to purchase a very nice "proof" printer ie Xerox Phaser 7760 with Phaser Match software. Anything WITHOUT an interpolated DPI but a True DPI.

Hope that helps.

[copier tech]

Re: Color Matching

All you need to say to the customer is that the copier is printing perfectly as designed but it's their SCREENS that are not calibrated.

This is of course all you drums, devs ITB etc have not passed % yeild

[blackcat4866]

Re: Color Matching

This is kind of round-about, but it works for me:

When a customer complains about color matching, the first thing I do is a simple cleaning and color calibration. This test pattern is very handy to identify flaws in CMYK. See below:

Then if it's still not close enough, I'll connect my laptop to the MFP and get a copy of the enduser's document. If it's not in a format that I can open, I'll use a PDF conversion of that document.
1) I'll open the document and confirm with the enduser that I've identified the color that they are concerned with matching. Using ColorPic I can identify the CMYK description of that color in the electronic document, i.e. CMYK:50/40/30/20
2) Next I print the document with PCL6 and PS3 drivers. Using my Pantone Color Bridge I find the closest match and compare the CMYK description.
3) If it matches (or close), then it's time for the business cards. Ask each person in the office for a business card and set them all on the table side by side. Typically you'll see four or five shades of similar and some totally dissimilar colors. "So which is the official color? There are 5 choices here." Your keyop will choose a sample and say "This is it." or they might say "It's none of these. I'll get you one." Compare the sample to your Pantone Color Bridge, and determine the closest CMYK description, i.e. CMYK:55/45/35/25.
4) Open a Paint document, and create a color patch that matches the endusers official sample (55/45/35/25). Along side of that create a patch of the color in step #1 (50/40/30/20). Print it, and confirm that both colors appear as they should using Pantone Color Bridge.
5) So you say "OK, so the color in this electronic document as you can see here is CMYK:50/40/30/20. and the machine prints CMYK:50/40/30/20. And your official color is 55/45/35/25 per the Pantone Color Bridge. If that color was in the electronic document it would print it, like this sample I created in Paint. All we need now is your official color to appear in this document."

You can also throw out there that just because a document is printed in ink, or came from a professional printer, that does not necessarily make it a good example of their official color. The business cards demonstrate this.

Notice how I've completely side-stepped the topic of Additive (RGB) versus Subtractive (CMYK) color. When pressed about the monitor versus print issue, the line I like to use is: "When they invent electronic light producing paper, then copies might look like your monitor. For now, copy paper is reflective, not refractive." Naturally there are ways of calibrating your monitor to more closely match refractive colors, but almost noone goes to that trouble. =^..^=

[vishop]

Re: Color Matching

Thank you much guys for the input. Recently i have convinced the client that there is no way both are going to match. Now the goal is just to get the prints and screen to be as close as possible. Maybe 75 to 85% match.

@Setright

This just occurred to me - they are not using a graphic software of any kind. From the 3D render, they just open the JPG file on Windows default dll application "Windows Photo Viewer", ctrl+P then print. Imagine that, and expect it to match what's show on screen. I'll take this into consideration. And your last line is very very true and also happening to this same client.


@blackcat
ill go thru your instructions, see how it works...


Right now i'm gathering all info that could help me before i go back on the client.

[zoraldinho]

Re: Color Matching

Another truth is that IRA 50xx series can't print colours even close like CLC 5151 and similar series. I'm talking about monitor matching and colours quality.

[qbert69]

Re: Color Matching

What's nice is when you have a customer (...hypothetically speaking, of course!) that is running an Apple computer with an NEC 4K Ultra High Definition Monitor which displays 1.07 Billion out of 4.3 Trillion Colors:

NEC Display Solutions PA322UHD-BK Black 31.5" 10ms 4K HDMI Widescreen LED Backlight LCD Monitor IPS 350 cd/m2 1,000:1 - Newegg.com

...and they expect for the printer to *reproduce* THAT color gamut!

...dumbasses!

Every device has its own reproducible color space. Transmissive (monitor) color space is going to be wider that a reflective (print on paper) color space!...They just need to focus on the most "true to life and accurate" reproduction based on that devices limitations!

TriStimulus: TriStimulus

[teckat]

Re: Color Matching

First step= Fire the Salesperson.

Second step= ask the designer, do u know the difference between RGB n CMYK.

Third step= if they say "I don't know", I say where did u get your degree.

Fourth step= I give them options, instructions, choices, & results.

Fifth step= if all fails, I point them to Xerox, love giving up those headache contracts.