c6500 copy quality issue

[totoro]

Hey all,

I'm having a strange problem that I have no idea how to solve. If you can see from the attachment, the letters are shadowed or highlighted. The lines that do the highlighting are supposed to be all orange. They sometimes start orange then turn dark or stay dark. This machine has printed them all orange before with the same image. No maintenance items are due. Drums and developers were changed and calibration was done to no avail. Anyone have any suggestions? Also does anyone know how to get the machine print true black, not processed black? TIA.

[RRodgers]

Using a Fiery to print this I take it?

[Stirton.M]

In your print driver, select the colour tab and then select "advanced" from there. At the bottom of the page you can toggle the true black for text only.

Also, if the document you have contains any elements that are process black, the machine will reproduce them as process black, regardless if it is graphic or text, unless you toggle grey scale in the print driver, which of course, will turn all colours to grey scale. If you have a graphic or text element you want in black, it must not contain any other colours if you want it to show true black. So, if you are rendering in RGB, ALL the values for black must be 0,0,0. Or if you are rendering CMYK, only K should have a value, the other colours should be at 0.

When printing the above image, check through command workstation what the image there looks like. You will have to send the file to print, and then from the print queue, right click the file and select "process and hold". The file will go to the hold queue. Right click it there and select "preview", at which point you will be presented with an image of what the fiery received from the computer. You can zoom in for a closer look. You should be able to see if the area you want the colour to show is there or not. In most cases, this is what your print driver has sent to the copier.

While printing, in the colour tab, advanced, check the input and output profiles there. Usually the input file should be graphics program defaulted, and the output should also be one of the fiery baseline. If all you see on the output profile select is 10 entries (if I recall, option 1 to option 10 or something similar to that), then your print driver is not communicating with the copier properly. You will need to ensure two way communications is active and that the driver sees the options, else your printouts will be subject to uncertainties when being processed. Those profiles can be selected based on the paper type you are using, and you can even edit them in colorwise pro tools to create custom colour profiles to suit specific needs (such as if a blue isn't quit that right blue, you can adjust the curve to give 10% extra cyan and 5 % extra magenta for example) and select that profile while printing a specific file you want.

If you are using a Creo controller, you can directly preview the document through the Creo screen, use the eyedropper tool to take a sample of the area that the colour doesn't look right. The eyedropper tool will display the CMYK variables seen.

If the job you sent to the controller looked fine at the PC, sometimes the controller will corrupt the file and colours will be produced unexpectedly. Simply telling the fiery to reprint the file will not correct this anomaly. Resend the job from the computer. In certain cases, I recommend to do a clear server (to empty out the print, hold and log queues). In some cases, fragmentation of the drive may be at fault. You can also use remote access to view the Fiery windows environment and do a direct defrag from there to clean up the disk. In some cases, even have windows (within the remote access window on another computer) do a drive check to look for and correct any errors that are on the drive of the fiery.

[totoro]

Thanks for all the help. I used your suggestions and they helped alot and then calibrated the fiery with the spectrometer and all is good.

[Stirton.M]

Ya, I guess I could have recommended the calibration as well. I took it for granted you did this before hand. But as long as you resolved it and learned something along the way, that is the important thing.

[totoro]

Yeah, that was a misunderstanding on my part I asked the customer if she had calibrated the fiery and she said yes. I BELIEVED HER !! I didn't notice it until I ran a test print and read the date of the last calibration. Always do it myself from now on. I still appreciate all the help.

[Stirton.M]

I get that from time to time with one customer. She always says she's "turned off the machine" when it behaves strangely (for those odd electrical issues), calibrates, performs belt refresh or toner refresh or colour registration adjust and on and on.

When I show up, I simply do all those without hesitation if there is a complaint related. Her response is, what was so different from when I do it to when she does it? In my mind my response is, I do not imagine I am doing it, I do it.

Because she is cute, I do not mind going to the call. I suspect she just likes my company.

[RRodgers]

Just have her load the paper for you, and watch to make sure she is doing it right.

[Stirton.M]

you mean as she is bending over????