Dye-Sub Color Problem

[Peter Meacham]

The colors on dye-sub paper from my Ricoh 7700 are coming out muted, specifically, the black is more brownish and red is dull. Those are the only two colors I am using on this project. The dye-sub process is fairly new to me and I have only done one other project a few weeks ago.

I have not tried to actually heat press the transfer yet because of the muted colors.

I am printing on the bright side of the paper, The printer is newer.

I am not sure if I have the ICC Color Management profile installed. Can anyone advise how to check that I have the ICC profile installed pls.

I am not sure how to disable color management in Corel Draw V5. Can anyone advise how to do that pls.

Any other advice on what to look for to correct muted colors pls.

thanks,

Pete

[Scott Shepherd]

Peter, the colors will always be muted when coming off the printer for dye sub. That's the problem with that process. You can't ever tell if it's going to be right until you press it. If you don't know if the icc profile is installed, then it probably isn't. I can't help you there, I'm on a Mac, printing from Illustrator, using the Conde profiles. A lot of people use the PowerDriver from Sawgrass, but I didn't have much luck with it when I first started.

I'd go ahead and press it and see what it looks like. However, you MUST get the printer setup with the right color management and profiles or you're in for a lot of headaches.

Who'd you buy the printer from?

[Peter Meacham]

Scott,

From Johnson Plastics. I will look for the sawgrass Power Driver.

thanks,

Pete

Follow-up Report: I loaded the Sawgrass Power Driver and everything came out OK.

Still had muted colors when printed on the paper transfer, but everything looked good when heat pressed.

Thanks for the information Scott.

[Scott Shepherd]

Great Peter! It would be nice to see the actual colors before pressing, but that's life with dye sub. We do a fair amount of color matching and it's not an easy task. I even had a friend come in and build me a profile a while back. For some things, it worked better than Conde's, for other things, Conde's worked better. In general, I use the Conde profile.

I don't know your background, so I don't mean to insult your knowledge if you already know this stuff, but color is a beast. It really is. It's so complex. The printer matters, the paper matters, the humidity matters, the temperature matters, the pressure and time matter. You can press 1 tag for 60 seconds and the color be perfect, put 10 tags in at the same time for 60 seconds and the color will be different.

I went to a color management seminar last year and it was eye opening. My conclusion was that very few people understand color and printing There's a thing called Gamut, and there's a color gamut for that printer with that ink. Some colors you can't hit. It's just not possible with that printer and that ink. You can try, but you'll never get there. Once you start understanding the limits of it all, it can help a lot, and keep you from over promising color matching.

And don't forget, it matters if you're using RGB or CMYK for your output. For example, on the Conde setup, you use RGB, but the printer is CMYK. RGB is supposed to have a larger color gamut than CMYK, so I'm told.

Good luck with your project and I hope it turns out well and you get lots more work from it!

[Mike Null]

I'll echo Steve's remarks. last year i must have printed 50 iterations of a multicolor logo and was never able to achieve all the colors. Finally had the customer print the transfer sheets on their Xerox. Not perfect but closer. That was clt not dye sub but I think matching is just as difficult.

[Martin Boekers]

Conde has a great "overall" profile, but if you didn't buy the printer from them it's $100, but I feel it's worth it. A $100 can evaporate quickly with dye sub... Plus if you have any issues David Gross is their main guy, his customer service is the best. Also you don't want the transfer to be printed and then stored for days between pressing. As others have said paper, environment do make a difference, make sure you use the paper designed for Ricoh as it uses gel inks and paper requirements are different. Color correction can be challenging as color curves are not linear. IE 5 points of color won't necessarily move the final 5 points of color equally. I find if you do spot colors to make a test of the color with variations and press it to the material you use, then you can pick the actually settings for the color that closest matches it. I'd test a basic color chart to see how colors react. Black will come up a little muddy at times because the Ricoh driver won't print only black so there is a "mix" of the inks to achieve it. Reds are an issue and sometimes lean to the orange side. Dye Sub gives the process to do 4 color printing at a reasonable cost for short runs, it's not perfect, but with consistency of environment and processing procedure you can optimize your control for expected results. Good luck with this once you get more comfortable with the process you'll have a great sales tool!

[AL Ursich]

Martin,

Good Advice.... I am in the market for a 7700 or the latest in the next 6 months as my R1800 is no longer supported by Sawgrass..... My main 2 colors are RED and Black as I do Accountability Tags.... Something to keep in mind how Red and Black is Achieved..

Thanks,

AL