Docucolor 252 and Fiery - pure or dirty yellow?

Discussion in 'Xerox Color Laser Printers & Color Copiers' started by debkarpus, Feb 19, 2010.

  1. debkarpus

    debkarpus New Member

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    Does anyone have a docucolor 252 and standalone Fiery setup? If so, when you print a solid square of 100% yellow only and print, does it come out 100% yellow or a "dirty yellow?"
    Thanks
     
  2. Jeff

    Jeff Senior Member

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    I didn't reply because we only have a 242 with bustled Fiery - but it prints 100% yellow when we send a square of 100% yellow to it (or 100% cyan or magenta - no visible spatters of other color in it.)

    Which exact fiery do you have? What color profiles are you using? And how are you calibrating your fiery?
     
  3. debkarpus

    debkarpus New Member

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    We have a 252 and a standalone Fiery. When we print out our Pantone pallette all of our colors are way off and anything that has yellow has extra spatters of cyan, magenta and black. I have a sister who has the same configuration you do and her pantone pallete is so much closer to the actual pantones and her yellows are just yellow no spatters. Xerox says that all yellows print that way and it is acceptable to have that muddy yellow. I don't think so. The confusing part is that if you look at your color dictionaries on your 242 you will see that process yellow is designated to have some additional colors in it. That is the same on our 252 (same dictionaries), but when my sister or you print out a process yellow you get solid yellow, we do not. Plus we have all kinds of issues with "registration" being off (as if it was on a traditional press and out of registration, we pull a job out of the archive to print some more and it is so way off the original. These are 2 separate issues and they are trying to figure out the registration one, but insist that the yellow should not be coming out just yellow since the dictionary isn't 100% yellow. So, that's our story, very frustrating trying to get jobs done with such inconsistencies. (we don't get any spatter in our cyan or magenta, only yellow).
     
  4. Milo Wilson

    Milo Wilson Senior Member

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    Have you done any patch updates to the fiery? Is the 252 maintained properly? See if there are any firmware updates for the machine itself.
     
  5. copy 7

    copy 7 Member

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    Can you print CMYK yellow 0 0 100 0 and have a pure yellow from your application? Wondering if we can isolate the issue to the rip or the docucolor itself, if it's only happening with pantone color matching, or overall?
    Have you run the gradiation adjustment from the docucolor itself - (login 11111 or whatever it's set to and drill down to the image quality gradiation adjustment menu.) Have you tried resetting the RIP calibration to default? Try printing the yellow. Then recalibrate the scanner if you're calibrating off the glass and recalibrating the firety then? Then try printing the yellow again. Does the yellow on the gradiation test look 100% clean? How about on the fiery test sample?
     
  6. copy 7

    copy 7 Member

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    When you say registration, are you talking about between colors, or the position of the whole image on the sheet? If the latter, I fear you'll be disappointed if you're looking for offset-like consistency. With the entry level docucolors I think of the registration adjustment more as a "correction factor". You can get it on and it should stay throughout a run, or throughout a day. But after a while you will likely find you have to readjust, whether due to paper or working conditions or roller conditions or contamination or other. If would be really neat if these used a mechanical guide/stop and/or optical on-the-fly sheet registration adjustment to adjust for both position and eliminate skew, but I think that commands a price about double in the market right now. Also the stock itself warps from the heat of the fusing somewhat, so back-side registration is a bit more trail and error. I kept a grid test print on hand with centerlines and bounding box that I could see close to the edge of the sheet. Before important jobs, I'd print that on the stock at hand whether plain, coated1, coated2, coated3, etc. And then change the registration adjustment a few clicks + or - to optimise it. It would hold for me through a run of a thousand without issue, but a week later I'd often have to adjust again a few clicks + or - for that stock weight/type on the machine itself. A bit of a pain if you've experienced easier, but on the other hand, the machine makes quick effortless work of other tasks that would take your time to adjust on offset, so I can live with it.
     
  7. debkarpus

    debkarpus New Member

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    When I print a pure yellow box, I get spatters of magenta, blue and black. It doesn't matter whether it is from quark, In design, illustrator, pdf, or whether it is print and hold or imported to the fiery. It is always muddy. Our techs have been in and you can print a pure yellow directly from the 252 and all is good. Perfect yellow. I have reset the calibration to default, it makes no difference. This has been an issue since the machine was installed and the technician ran out yellow and the pantone chart. We cannot get a pure yellow and we cannot get an somewhat accurate pantone chart printout because of the dirty yellow issue. We have been told that the color dictionaries for "process yellow" is the same on the 252 and the 242, but why can the 242 with the same dictionary get a good yellow (my sister's 242) across the board and the 252 cannot. We have been told that the yellow we have been getting is acceptable to everyone who has a 252. I have a pantone chart and a pure yellow sheet from my sisters 242 bustled, and it is so much better when matching pantones. The Pantone matches we are getting are terrible. If you got into your spot colors the CMYK for Process yellow is C-3.5, M-6.5, Y-99, K-.5. They said everyone 242 or 252 who use this dictionary gets the muddy yellow and it is acceptable. Yet the 242 somehow using that dictionary gets a 100% yellow. They have stated they don't know why my sisters 242 is getting the good yellow! Frustrating to say the least that we cannot get a primary color to print accurately which then effects anything we use yellow on. I can get a true yellow when using the quick mode which is not the recommended setting for print. Also, we cannot get a good pantone chart printout which would help us when matching. When printing a chart it overrides the quick mode. Our off-registration (CMKY registration) issues are another they cannot solve.
     
  8. hamilton779

    hamilton779 New Member

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    100% yellow

    to get 100% yellow, you can go into your command work station. click SERVER, then MANAGE COLORS, then SPOT ON, then pick an output profile (I use photoshop cmyk), choose your "INK" (pantone coated or uncoated). Scroll down to the color (pms# or yellow, cyan, etc) you need then double click on the 'shade' column. you can manually set each color percentage that way. (for yellow: C-0%,Y-100%, M-0%, K-0%). Just make sure when you go to print, you choose that "Output Profile" so it matches up.

    p.s. I have learned that the xerox people are geared more towards color copies and don't have a complete understanding of the offset printers needs. I have figured these settings out on my own with no help from tech support.
     
  9. Michael4

    Michael4 Senior Member

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    You have to match your output color profiles as stated. you also have to have "Use substitute colors" on as well.
    Although you should have to go through such lengths to achieve such simple color. I'm not a Xerox user however...
     
  10. hamilton779

    hamilton779 New Member

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    Michael, when operating a rip with a docucolor 242 you do not turn on a 'substitute colors' setting, as that would override the one(s) you have manually reset. you actually select the individual output profile you want. This is a program/setting specific to this xerox printer. (why can't they all be the same - sure would make our jobs easier!)
     
  11. Michael4

    Michael4 Senior Member

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    My apologies, on my Canon you could follow your steps exactly (this would create a substitute for the specified Pantone). However printing with matching profiles alone wouldn't do anything for me. The profiles have to match and 'subs' have to be in use.

    It does make it difficult to trouble shoot colleges issues..
    So for the mis-guidance there
     

  12. k_graham

    k_graham Senior Member

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    You are going about it the right way trying to find another exact model for comparison, though even that other models are not having the issue indicates it is not acceptable. Don't automatically trust the install disks either - my 240 had an issue where it would calibrate paper, card, etc and after a week into installation would only calibrate paper. Xerox replaced re-installed a couple times, even replaced hard drive, and still same problem, changed install CD's and no problem since, yet originals indicated no problem during install.

    You might also post the issue on http://fieryforums.efi.com/ for a response from the manufacturer, EFI. If you could find a user with same equipment without problem you can make a Hard drive clone with free Linux Clonezilla from Clonezilla.org, another one I've recently seen is free and easier but requires 512 megs RAM is, www.Redobackup.org

    In the case that color calibration is causing the issue, you should

    1. Make sure all patches are installed

    2. Do a Graduation adjust on copier, but first turn off and back on so it does its initial calibration

    3. Verify copier is making good copies - I like using a photo of a wedding ensuring subject has good color and shadows in whites of wedding dress are gray, not miscolored and details are sharp - details get lost with worn out developer or when transfer belt needs replacement. I never had a Xerox issue but had all sorts of issues with Ikon as they thought a pretty butterfly was a good calibration.

    4. As you are having issues 1st do a reset in Fiery calibration taking it back to factory settings - try printing your pantone file at that point.

    5. (Fiery Calibration - there seems to be those that have problems and those that use the Spectro - if you don't have one I purchased 2 off Ebay [I have 2 stores so needed 2] with the additional Color Profiler 2.xx software which also allows monitor calibration in the $600.00 range and were the UVcut/rev 4 , recommended, beware not all have the optional Color Profiler software. Also base and unit must have matching serial numbers.) If using off the glass do the initial scanner calibration and I profile for 4 papers. Paper, Heavy1 - which I calibrate with Coated 80# txt so I can duplex coated within machine. Heavy2 and Heavy2 coated (mine are 240's so my Heavy2 setting is your Heavy 3 setting).


    Print out perhaps 3 targets at a given time using the last for each weight profiled. I always had the feeling high UV papers were'nt the best for calibration via scanner and suggest 92 bright regular bond for the text calibration. With a UVcut spectro this should not be an issue you can use higher bright color copy papers.

    For Fiery settings I use NONE for RGB and CMYK color settings and now use GRACOL in software or if too saturated will consider SWOP in software.

    If you still have problems I suggest you take Xerox up on their swop machine guarantee and suggest trying the Xerox or other than Fiery RIP.

    Ken
     
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