Manually Adjust Colours on a Sharp MX2600?

[Jason210]

I know that you can go into Printer Defaults > Color > Color Adjustment and do it there, by by so doing you disable the Postscript driver functionalities.

The problem is that there is not enough green, and too much red. Calibration doesn't solve it. We have printed out a variety of documents from a number of different PCs and always magenta tint to the images.

I'm a lot loss as to how to print out a reasonable good print using Indesign. I'm using sRGB ICC profile for images. They look fine on whatever monitor I choose to view them, but when I send them to the printer, they go a bit red.

[costd]

If you are a tech - Step one (for me) is to run the color calibration simulations and see if that produces proper color patches. if so - it is a program/driver issue. If calibration output results are still not acceptable, you can change to one of the other Defs and see if that gives better results, or create a custom setting. Just remember, you are changing things for ALL prints.

If the poor colors are only an issue from one program (even with different computers) - program issue, not machine.

If you are not a tech, and you have tried all the user adjustments - time to call a tech.

Last note - remember colors on a monitor and the output color are very very seldom even close much less the same.

[bonnie750]

update to the latest firmware first and setup the calibration using the jig and the latest step by step method from Sharp, always use om toner. i have acustomer who had a km bizhub and changed to a sharp mx4500, he has the same problem as you,before very good colour replication from photoshop....after, well let's just say he's not pleased!

[Jason210]

update to the latest firmware first and setup the calibration using the jig and the latest step by step method from Sharp, always use om toner. i have acustomer who had a km bizhub and changed to a sharp mx4500, he has the same problem as you,before very good colour replication from photoshop....after, well let's just say he's not pleased!

Thanks. Just to clarify :-)

1. Update to latest firmware

2. "setup the calibration using the jig and the latest step by step method from Sharp" What do you mean by jig, and where can I find this step by step method please? Do you have a link?

3. What do you mean by om / km toner?

I have contacted our supplier of this machine, Office Management, about the problem, but they same unwilling or unable to help.

[OMD-227]

I agree with the guys here.
As the machine is printing from indesign, it surely must have PS installed. Get a copy of a 'problem' document PDF file, and print the file directly from the machines USB port using USB memory print mode. This will print the document without using any driver, only the internal print controller. This will rule out the driver being at fault or the machine. I have seen huge differences in color matching using this mode. I even have clients who prefer to print via the USB mode from some programs as no driver or program change gets close.
Also, print the PDF/indesign files using 'Print as Image' within the program settings. This also makes a huge difference.
Get a standard high res photo and print that through any other program such as MS Paint or Image Viewer. Now insert the same image into any Adobe program and print it. If there is a significant difference, then you need to change the driver and/or program settings.

Firmware must be updated. Then run sim 44-27, then run 44-13 with the calibration jig, then run full color calibration sequence using 46-74. This will bring your machine up to spec perfectly if all of the above has not worked for you.

[Jason210]

If you are a tech - Step one (for me) is to run the color calibration simulations and see if that produces proper color patches. if so - it is a program/driver issue. If calibration output results are still not acceptable, you can change to one of the other Defs and see if that gives better results, or create a custom setting. Just remember, you are changing things for ALL prints.

I know but this read tint is appear on ALL prints regardless of what software or what workstation they are printed from. It's clearly a printer /driver problem. I only know of one calibration test and that is the one where you print out a A3 sheet and scan it and then it's supposed to be ok but this doen't get red of the red tint.

Adjusting the colors manually seems to turn of the PostScript driver functionality, so that's not an option as these images will eventuall be printed from InDesign.

[Jason210]

I agree with the guys here.
As the machine is printing from indesign

Thanks, but it's the same on any program. There is actually no problem with InDesign specifically. The problem is that if I try to adjust the colors manually with the driver, then it screws up the PS driver and of course InDesign documents then cannot be printed out properly. So this is not an option.

I think I'll start with the firmware. I have no clue what you mean by 44-27, 44-13 etc...but I'd like to do this. Can you explain further please?

[Jason210]

Get a standard high res photo and print that through any other program such as MS Paint or Image Viewer. Now insert the same image into any Adobe program and print it.

Already done that and it makes no difference. It's not an Adobe problem, I'm sure.

[OMD-227]

I hope you realise the MX2600N is not a color matching or pantone calibrated machine. You will never get exactly what is on any screen. That being said, from what I can read, the machine is severely out of calibration, whether thats from incorrect setup, worn consumables or the environment that it is in.

If you dont have the firmware, calibration jig, or knowledge of the internal service modes of the machine to correctly calibrate it, giving you this info might might completely stuff everything up for you if something is done wrong. You really need someone there from Sharp to correctly set the machine up.

If you are still interested in going through the entire setup & calibration procedure, send me your email address.

[OMD-227]

Print sim 64-05 & 64-06. Attach them here.

[bdcrandall13]

We noticed a change in colors from different sharp machines (MX-3501 to MX-2600.) We went into the printing preferences in the driver under the color tab and changed the image type to custom. Then click advanced color and enable CMYK Simulation and drag the Nuetral Gray slider all the way to color. This made a few of our customers happy with the output.

[OMD-227]

Yes, that can help, but using full color on the neutral gray slider often makes the machine print b/w text using all 4 colors, producing a noticeable dark brown text instead of a true black. You can see all 4 colors when using a loupe. This mostly occurs on PDF's or Indesign documents.
The 3500 series is 600dpi, the newer 2600 is 1200dpi with an even finer toner, so there are big differences in the machine output anyway.

[glewisme]

I don't see anything on here about the color definitions in SIM 63-11 what is it set to Def 1,2, or 3? Try setting it to color def 2 or 3 then recalibrate it and see where that gets you,as def1 shifts the color towards magenta.You MUST run the calibrations after changing 63-11 otherwise it won't register the new color definition.

[glewisme]

Go to Sharps INDC service website look up the calibration procedure in the service bullitens and print it out.If you don't feel comfortable w/that download the service manual onto a laptop and bring it with you.Like wazza said you need a jig part # UKOG-0318FCZZ,and run SIM 44-13.Let us know don't leave us hanging here.

[Jason210]

The office Management team came and calibrated it, but on fine setting when printing from Adobe software all the images have a faint pattern of vertical lines in them and look dirty. However, this problem disappears when the setting is set to "High Quality".

Office Management have spoken about something called a "Colour Monkey" that is a tool that allows us to create ICC profiles for our Adobe software for that printer. However the MX2600 has a 2MB download limit for color profiles, so we can't use it yet.

Thansk for the info on the jig part but right now I think I'll wait until and see what they come up with at Office Management.