Adding color printing to engraving business

[Larry Bratton]

The Ricoh Gel systems use about 1/3 the ink the Epson's do, according to what I have seen.

The original poster was looking to do a lot of printing on paper products. That's a far different animal and not one I'd be looking into. Printers (people, not the physical thing that sits on the desk) are a dime a dozen and it's very competitive. I do some work with several printers and I'm not sure I'd ever want to go into that world. Color and color matching is an art.

To get good colors, you really have to know what you're doing and it takes expensive printers, expensive software, and a lot of trial and error.

The same file printed on 5 different brands/types of paper will produce 5 different colors. You have to know how to deal with all that and it's far from easy.

Scott:
What you speak is true to a point. Good output from a laser printer on paper is usually pretty easy to accomplish. I was responding to the original poster's comment " My first inclination would be toward a standard color laser printer, but are there other technologies that can compliment our kinds of activities better? " I just elaborated that a laser printer WOULD compliment his other output. I would not think it would be practical to run to a print shop everytime you need a few prints.

I do wide format inkjet printing with a Canon IPF printer that makes good color as easy as it can be. It makes prints using the standard RGB color space. I use a Photoshop plugin that came with the printer that allows you to print directly from PS. Set your paper type in the driver and let er go. No RIP required. $5000.00 machine.
It uses colorfast pigmented ink and we use it to print t-shirt transfers. Amazing how well it holds up to washing.

As far as dye sub goes, if I were going to do that, I would definitely go the Ricoh route.

[Scott Shepherd]

Larry, I guess it all depends on what you plan to do. I've seen RGB photos cause a nightmare for CMYK large format printers, which most large format printers are. I've seen the large format Canon's that are RGB, and they are spectacular, I agree. However, they can have serious problems if someone provides a CMYK file, like from Illustrator. I've had my rounds with color and printing (having stuff printed for us). It cost me some money. We did an entire building, several hundred signs, all modular signs with paper style inserts, printed the colors the company asked for (and they checked the colors upon installation). Got a call about 4 weeks later to change some names and more some things around, which all required printing. Had the same printer print the files, went to install then. Completely different tone. Off by a couple of shades. No way to put them next to the one's that were printed in the last batch.

I ended up having to reprint a lot of them just so I could keep one's in the same areas all looking exactly the same. I even had them retain color samples of the originals so they could match it. Turns out, they switched brands of paper from one order to the next, so the new paper took the ink differently, which caused the colors to be off slightly.

Nightmare.

Now, if I were just printing photographs from PS to a RGB printer, I'd be right there with you! The more I get into the color world and printing, the more I don't want to get into the color world and printing. One guy I deal with a lot that's a printer told me that for every point in humidity, the color would change. So you could be printing in 40% humidity levels in the morning, have a storm move in, go up to 80% humidity and your color would now be different.

I've got enough problems without the weather getting involved

I also have a Ricoh dye sub printer. I like it a lot.

[Larry Bratton]

Scott:
Oh yes, I agree. I had a CMYK wide format printer once, and it was a double barreled pain in the butt to get good output from it, had to use a RIP and all that crap. Printing, on a large scale (and I mean more than what an engraving shop would do) is certainly something that requires a good bit of expertise, a science unto itself. But I think this topic would be limited to the type of printing that Mike does for badges and other things.
It's cheap too. I just don't know the business well enough to figure out how you make a decent profit at it. Lots and lots of competition. Not a business I want to be in any more than I already am. However, it is nice to be able to print displays, posters and big photos as you need them. I fortunately found a good source for ink for my 12 color printer a lot cheaper than Canon OEM ink. It is ridiculously expensive. 330ml is like $173.00 for OEM. Alternate source sells a perfect match 240ml for $28.00!!! That's where the money is, in the supplies.

[John McClanahan]

All printers print with CMYK ink sets. Epson, and I assume others, accept RGB information and convert it to CMYK for printing. With the Epson, if you send a CMYK job to it, it will convert it to RBG first, them re-convert it to CMYK. What you end up with is a double converted file, and a good chance for color shift.

Another area that is problematic is profiles. If not applied properly, the result can be an incomplete profile, or double correction. Either case will result in unexpected color shift. Not understanding what happened can be real flustering.

Last but not least is Pantone colors. Some spot colors convert to process (CMYK) just fine. Others will not. Since Illustrator users are far more apt to use spot colors than Photoshop users, don't be surprised if CMYK AI files cause problems. CMYK and spot colors are designed to be color separated for printing plates used on a printing press.

John