Greys coming out brown?

[Lorcan]

My greys have always come out a bit pink/purple. Not drastically, just a little bit. But just lately they've decided to come out brown, unacceptably so. I've never used a profile as I found they just make things worse. I'm using all the same settings, haven't touched a thing. Same shirts, same paper, some ink. The only thing I've added is a fresh bottle of yellow ink (genuine Artainium).

All the other colours seem fine, including black. Any ideas? I'm using Corel X3.

[bms]

My first comment would be to set Corel X3 as per the pdf that came with your inks - there are 2 stages: (1) to configure Corel X3 (with the profile) and (2) to configure the printer so that the system is set as per the Sawgrass recommendations. That should give you correct colour matching.

Have you done a nozzle check and/or head clean to see if your nozzles are printing perfect as this could aslo affect colouration?

[Lorcan]

Never had a PDF, I'll see if I can get one from the Sawgrass site. As I said, it's never been a problem not running a profile apart from a tolerable purplishness to the greys. Why would I need to run a profile now when it's been working perfectly happily without one for the past 2 years?

I've done a nozzle clean and a full powerflush - no difference. I use an Epson 4400 and rarely get nozzle problems. Just wondering why there should suddenly be a colour shift when I haven't changed anything.

[bms]

Just wondering why there should suddenly be a colour shift when I haven't changed anything.
We come across such a question far too often :!: I think it might be Windows Updates changing things back to some default position or something along these lines. Too often nothing's been done to a computer, yet the settings within applications change. Don't have a reason for why changes occur, but some random events must cause something to change. If you don't have any success with Sawgrass website then pm me your email address and I'll email the files to you.

[Lorcan]

Ok I've installed a V3.00 Artainium profile which someone sent me a while back and the greys are now grey again - hooray!

Except the black is now brown.

So where do we go from here? :lol:

PS I'm printing charts from 100% to 10% black, no other colours involved at the moment.

[bms]

Which graphics package are you using and is the black brownish on paper or brownish on substrate?

[Lorcan]

Corel X3, and yes the black is now brown on paper.

I'm going to try RGB colours tonight as I've been using the CMYK palette to date and I read somewhere that the blacks are different. Certainly they look different on the screen.

If you have a more suitable profile for me perhaps you could email it to sales@t-wiz.co.uk

Thanks for your help Martin 8-)

[Lorcan]

It seems my initial joy was premature, as what looked like nice greys on paper actually press greenish brown.

So currently I have a choice of brown greys without a profile, or greenish brown greys with one.

The finger of suspicion is definitely pointing at the yellow ink. I have some replacement ink coming tomorrow so soon we'll know if it's the culprit.

I don't suppose there is a way of getting Corel to print greys using ONLY the black ink? I have no idea why it insists on using the other colours when printing greys and blacks.

[joconnell]

Check that the ink you changed is definately Sublijet. I had a problem with black and white prints on placemats turning out with a brownish tinge which progressively got worse and finally discovered that the inks I changed were not Sublijet and were burning when pressed.
James

[bms]

print greys using ONLY the black ink
Grey isn't printed with just black ink as this would be black or very grainy black. Other small droplets of yellow, cyan and magenta are needed to trick the eye into seeing grey. If you have the chance, look at a grey tone under a magnifying glass and you'll see the other droplets of colour in the print :!:

[JSR]

If you only want to print greyscale and there's no colour in your design, forget all your profiles and just print via the printer driver, selecting "Greyscale" or "Black Ink Only" (depending on which printer you have). So long as you're set to print on plain paper, the printer should print with just the black ink. Try it and see.

It's the profile that forces the printer to use all the inks to create a composite black/grey. And it's the rendering intent which shuffles it away from actually being a good composite black/grey. Trying to get a neutral greyscale out of composite inks from an inkjet printer is the photographer's nirvana - that's why photographic inks are available in three or four shades of grey (such as Epson K3, or the Lyson Quad-black). In the relatively tiny gamut of dye-sub ink, it's a tough task to get even remotely close.

I had a design to print on lots of mugs awhile back which featured a photo on the front and black/white on the back. I actually ran the paper through the printer twice (once using the profile to get the colour photo, and then again using no profile and "greyscale" to get the b&w). Results were far better than sending it through once and ending up with a composite black/grey.

The next question will be - is Sawgrass black ink actually black? Well... ;)

[Lorcan]

Very informative 8-)

Ok next question:

I suspect that the yellow ink I'm currently using is too "strong" (can't think of a better word) whereas previously the magenta was slightly dominant. Is there a way of manually adjusting the four colour levels to get the desired output using Coreldraw?

[Lorcan]

Fresh ink arrived today, drained out the old stuff, powerflush and head clean and it's back to printing normally :mrgreen:

Thanks for all the help guys.