Precision Colors - Quality Issues [RESOLVED]

[beebill]

EDIT: The inks are fine. The test prints were off due to my mistake overlooking the correct colorspace in Photoshop.

I bought a Precision Color refill kit for my Canon Pro-10 back in June. I didn't see it right away, because it took some time for the refill inks to work their way through, but I recently noticed how bad my prints were coming out. I made a new ICC profile just to be sure, but I'm still getting really poor results.

I know they changed owners earlier in the year, and I've never ordered a set of pigment inks from them before, so I didn't know what to expect. I wanted to check if this quality is typical, or if I should contact them about it?

Here are the initial charts from ccStudio (Calibrite's version of X-Rite's i1Profiler software). The charts are color targets printed directly from ccStudio, and then scanned with my scanner, so I assume these are comparing apples to apples:

Hopefully you can tell how much weaker the colors are compared to OEM.

The following are test prints with their respective ICC profiles made with ccStudio. You can see how dim the red/magenta & cyan inks are for Precision Colors. Skin tones are a horrible gray with a greenish tint. Reds come out closer to orange, and the blues drift into purple.

Has anybody else had similar experiences, or is this not characteristic of their inks? Am I interpreting this correctly? Is there anything else I should take into account?

 

[PeterBJ]

If you accidentally refilled the cyan and magenta cartridges with the photo cyan and photo magenta inks instead of regular cyan and magenta I think these dull colours would be the result.

Could you please uoload a photo or scan of a nozzle check?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

It is the job of a profile to compensate ink variations and to get the print output closer together as much as
different gamuts would allow. It was a promise by precisioncolors that the inks are as close as possible to the OEM inks so that a different profile would not be needed. If this is the case here you may contact precisioncolors for that.

But I would verify as well that patch sheets and test images have been printed with the same driver setting -
e.g. ICC option on/off or inks have been swapped when printing the patch sheets

 

[pharmacist]

What is the pattern of the nozzle check of your Pro-10 to start with ? Could you upload a scan of this ?

 

[beebill]

I appreciate the replies. Here's a nozzle check I did yesterday after cleaning the heads. There wasn't any significant difference in the test prints between cleaning.

 

[beebill]

Oh boy, I just figured it out! It's been so long since I printed this test file, I forgot I needed to set the workspace to ProPhoto RGB :/

So the inks are looking much better in the test print. Though the custom profile I made with ccStudio is really off on the greens and purples. And of course I'm getting a B200 error again on the printer, so looks like I need to spring for a new printhead. The print gods are really against me these days.

At least I know the inks are good before forking out for a new one.

 

[PeterBJ]

It' a good thing you found an error in the settings that and the inks are OK. In the nozzle check PM, M, PC, C, Y and R are approximately same colour strength. A mistake in refilling would clearly have shown as a difference in colour strength.

I suggest to remove the printhead before the B200 error becomes permanent and prevents you from turning on the printer.

 

[pharmacist]

Why does the PC and the C band has the same hue. I would thought the PC should be lighter than the C band and also the M and LM looks almost the same in hue, but I can see a difference there. Did you put either PC or C in the C or PC position ? That would explain why the green patches in the first test page of i1Studio are so light: if you use LC instead of C that would explain your very light greenish patches above and also the blue/cyan patches are way too light. Check your inks in the C/PC position: it looks you have put PC in the C position.

 

[PeterBJ]

Why does the PC and the C band has the same hue.

I don't know why, but it looks like Canon designed the nozzle check printout for the Pro printers like that. Here is a post with a Pro 100 nozzle check. The PC, C, PM, M and Y are approximately same colour strength. Maybe it is to make the PC and PM easier to see?