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Jeff Heinrichs
07-03-2017, 10:04 AM
I'm having no luck in getting a job from Corel to Trotec's JobControl that has multiple colors for different engraving settings.

The reason I need to do this is that I'm engraving on 4" tennis balls. The text needs more power and slower speed than the logo. If I run the job with the typical "black" only engraving setting the logo is fine and the text too light, or the text will be fine and the logo too burned away. For that reason I was trying to get the logo to engrave at a lower power/higher speed and the text at a higher power/lower speed by using the color profiles in JobControl.

I've verified the colors are RGB and in the Trotec color library. I do use color profiles frequently in vector jobs to cut out certain areas before others, so I am familiar with using multiple colors to change the order of operations, but I haven't used multiple colors for variations in engraving settings.

Anyone have advice or what I could try to get this to work. Thanks in advance.

Scott Shepherd
07-03-2017, 12:02 PM
Hi Jeff, what's it not doing? You mentioned you are using RGB colors in the Trotec library. Are you using the Trotec Color Palette to select colors?

Jeff Heinrichs
07-03-2017, 12:28 PM
Scott, no I am not using the specific Trotec Color Palette (I've seen you mention it in other posts, but have not ever learned how to employ it yet), but the logo I changed to RGB (0,255,0) for green as I have done for other jobs and had no issues. That's why I wanted to make sure I clarified in my initial post that I am familiar with using the color settings for my laser jobs, albeit in vector cutting jobs not engraving jobs.

So when I create this logo below in CorelDraw. When I send it to JobControl it says it will engrave the black (0,0,0) and it will take x.xx minutes, it will show the green (0,255,0) and say it will engrave for 0.00 minutes, meaning that it isn't recognizing the green.

I did verify the RGB values and in the print preferences told the Trotec to engrave the green at 45% power and 80% speed, but it does recognize the black at 65% power, 90% speed

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Scott Shepherd
07-03-2017, 1:30 PM
I would suspect that's related to the color issue. Why it works on vector and not raster, I'm not sure, but to troubleshoot, I'd be using the Trotec color palette, no matter what. Then you'll know 100% whether it's color related or not.

Jeff Heinrichs
07-03-2017, 1:47 PM
Can you tell me how to install/access the Trotec color palette? I took a cursory look in CorelDraw when changing colors, but didn't see Trotec palette as an option.

Scott Shepherd
07-03-2017, 1:53 PM
Can you tell me how to install/access the Trotec color palette? I took a cursory look in CorelDraw when changing colors, but didn't see Trotec palette as an option.

PM me your email address and I'll email you the palette.

Gary Hair
07-03-2017, 3:18 PM
If you hover your cursor over the color in the material template you can see the RGB values you need to use, there really isn't any need to use the Trotec palette if you know the RGB values. When you are selecting the preferences for the job in the printer driver "Preferences" tab, do you have "Color" selected in the "Halftones" dropdown? Your description of the estimated time tells me you don't.



Scott, no I am not using the specific Trotec Color Palette (I've seen you mention it in other posts, but have not ever learned how to employ it yet), but the logo I changed to RGB (0,255,0) for green as I have done for other jobs and had no issues. That's why I wanted to make sure I clarified in my initial post that I am familiar with using the color settings for my laser jobs, albeit in vector cutting jobs not engraving jobs.

So when I create this logo below in CorelDraw. When I send it to JobControl it says it will engrave the black (0,0,0) and it will take x.xx minutes, it will show the green (0,255,0) and say it will engrave for 0.00 minutes, meaning that it isn't recognizing the green.

I did verify the RGB values and in the print preferences told the Trotec to engrave the green at 45% power and 80% speed, but it does recognize the black at 65% power, 90% speed

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Jeff Heinrichs
07-03-2017, 7:41 PM
Hey Steve,

Thanks for the .xml and this did get me closer, but has also raised more questions.

Attached you'll see the screenshot (CorelDrawSS.jpg) of my CD screen. The Trotec palette on the right, but notice the color value at the bottom, CMYK? thought that was curious. I continued on anyway.
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In JCX I saw something I hadn't seen before, see the attached JCX-1.jpg file. Now there was a time for the green color.
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I looked at the material database to make sure my settings were correct for what I wanted on the output (JCX-2.jpg), so I thought "Awesome this fixed it!"
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Ran the job and the attached JobResult1.jpg was the result. It showed time for the green, but the output didn't laser the green color. Odd especially given the fact JCX showed the calculated time for the color.
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My questions:

- Why does CorelDraw show CMYK as the color of the boxer, even though I chose the green from the Trotec color palette?
- How could JCX interpret the job and assign time for the color green (obviously accepting everything given to it from CorelDraw) and still not engrave the output.

CorelDraw File added here:
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Any ideas appreciated.

Scott Shepherd
07-03-2017, 7:57 PM
Do you have color management turned off, like I emailed? If not, try that. Also, make it a different color than green. Try light blue from the palette. I'm not at work so I can't open the file. I'll stop by work tomorrow after lunch if you don't solve it by then. Try the color management setting and try a different color for green and let us know here. I'll check back here tonight.

Jeff Heinrichs
07-03-2017, 8:23 PM
I initially didn't see it, but messing around I found it under a drop down list.

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After turning off color management I changed the logo color to cyan and "cyan" now appears on the bottom status bar of CorelDraw

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In JobControl everything looked appropriate, cyan was showing time to engrave settings on the left, the material database was changed from green to cyan with the appropriate speed and power settings. I ran the job and the output was the same as the first results above. Everything but the cyan dog logo was engraved.

Don't worry about rushing to solve this over a July 4th holiday on my account. This can definitely wait for tinker time some other day. I'm going to continue working on it tonight, because I want to play around with the Trotec palette some more, so I get more comfortable with how it replaces manually choosing colors.

Jeff Heinrichs
07-03-2017, 8:36 PM
Gary - Sorry I got distracted working through Steve's inputs.

Yes, I got intimately familiar the material template and the assigned colors when I did a layered Crater Lake relief map. I used every color from the 16 available to create that project.

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Doing color separations for that project wasn't a problem for me when it came to cutting out the layers, but everything I've tried so far on the engraving side has escaped me as to why I can't get it figured out.

I did verify that color is selected for the "half-tone" setting. I found that through my trial and error as well.

Scott Shepherd
07-03-2017, 8:58 PM
Hi Jeff. Good feedback. It's something simple we are missing. Can you take a screenshot of the mode area (just below the material selection area). If you can just screenshot that whole screen.

We will figure it out. I do think it's something simple. Just need to be able to see it all from start to JCX and we will get it.

Jeff Heinrichs
07-03-2017, 9:17 PM
Part of this is that I'm barely a student of CorelDraw, my experience with it is merely a few months old at this point, so everything I learn about it is new. I definitely have been leveraging the knowledge others have shared with regards to it's many nuances.

After doing everything above I noted the following when I select my logo and double click on the "cyan" at the bottom of the CorelDraw screen I get the following "Edit Fill" popup.

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What I'm curious about is initially after everything above was tried the pull down at the top right had "CMYK" selected. One thing I've learned in the last few months is that CMYK is your enemy in the Laser world, so seeing that alarmed me. I changed it to RGB and then I also noticed "Document Palette" shown, so I changed it to the Trotec palette. I exit and go back to this edit fill screen "Document Palette" is shown again and not the Trotec palette. Every time I change it to the Trotec palette, it changes back.

Not being a CorelDraw veteran I have no idea if these settings have impacts over other settings, etc. After changing the edit fill settings just mentioned I ran the job and still no logo engraved.

Give me a little more guidance on the screen shot of the "mode area" do you mean the material database window which also shows all the possible material selections?
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Scott Shepherd
07-03-2017, 9:26 PM
The page where you see things like "minimize to job", then the DPI, and Mode (photo, color,b/w). That whole page of settings if you can.

Jeff Heinrichs
07-03-2017, 9:35 PM
No problem, here it is:

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Scott Shepherd
07-03-2017, 9:45 PM
Looks right to me, but I'm not in front of a computer with it to check. On Process Mode, Standard is selected. Is there an "Ordered Dithering" there as a choice? If so, try that. If not, I'll have to get in front of my system and check a few screens.

Hopefully someone will see the issue.

Jeff Heinrichs
07-03-2017, 9:52 PM
I saw "Ordered Dithering" under the half-tone selection where I chose "color".

Shouldn't you be heading out to Williamsburg tomorrow for some great reenactments? I've been to Richmond/Williamsburg twice once on a Nascar mancation alone and then I took the family a year later, both times I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Scott Shepherd
07-03-2017, 9:59 PM
What options are there where standard is?

I used color mapping today and use it almost every day. It's setup that way so I rarely even pay attention to the settings.

Not nearly crazy enough to deal with the people/traffic around Williamsburg tomorrow! Cool place with lots of history but not on a holiday for me :) I'll be around the office after lunch tomorrow and will gladly get it worked out. Might very well be the CMYK/RGB settings in Corel. I'll check that too.

Jeff Heinrichs
07-03-2017, 10:30 PM
Where "standard" is there are the following options:

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Mayo Pardo
07-04-2017, 3:21 PM
I just noticed you did set the speed and power settings for the color but had suggested you may have had it set to "ignore" which wasn't the case based on the screen shot.

Might check to see your page setup in Corel is set to RGB as default, then re-save the file as RGB, then try it in Job Control again.

Scott Shepherd
07-04-2017, 7:25 PM
Hi Jeff, sorry it took so long for me to get back to this. My day didn't happen as planned.

I don't see anything you have set wrong in the screen shots. I loaded your file, as is, CMYK green showing in the color window. Sent it over and it engraved both items, the black and the green. I ran it in air, but it did actually engrave both colors. That leads me to believe something is set wrong in your Corel Colors (maybe CMYK as a primary color space?).

Here's what I have for the Default Color Settings as well as the Document Color Settings. Hope this helps fix it because I see nothing else wrong.

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Jeff Heinrichs
07-05-2017, 9:04 AM
Steve - So you are saying you sent the job to JCX even with CMYK showing in the color window for the logo and it still ran both colors? I thought CMYK was taboo.

Regardless of my CorelDraw settings then, the artwork had the settings that allowed you to run both colors exactly as I provided in the .CDR to you. Shouldn't it have done the same for me? Could a setting in JCX impact what given to it from CorelDraw?

Scott Shepherd
07-05-2017, 9:44 AM
Steve - So you are saying you sent the job to JCX even with CMYK showing in the color window for the logo and it still ran both colors? I thought CMYK was taboo.

Regardless of my CorelDraw settings then, the artwork had the settings that allowed you to run both colors exactly as I provided in the .CDR to you. Shouldn't it have done the same for me? Could a setting in JCX impact what given to it from CorelDraw?

Yes, that is correct. I opened the file, hit print, and it worked as if. CMYK isn't taboo, but it can cause issues. It causes issues because if it coverts to RGB, then it can convert it out of the right color values, in my opinion. For example Black is RGB 0,0,0. However, CMYK Black converts to RGB 35,31,32, which is where I think some issue come into play. But that's just my opinion from working around printers.

The artwork had the color settings, but the artwork is using the color settings from the Document Color Settings. If mine are different than yours, I'd suspect that it would yield different results. I'd make sure your settings for the two things I showed are the same as mine and then try it again. I'm unaware of anything in JCX that would cause that to not work, that's why I think it's a document related issue, not a Trotec related issue. I'll see if I can save the job file and email it to you. Then you should be able to load that file from JCX and bypass Corel and see if it works. If it works, then I'm reasonably confident that it's color setting related in Corel.

Mike Null
07-05-2017, 10:37 AM
It is my opinion--just that- that CMYK black does not hold the same density as RGB black, thus the engraver does not operate at full power, reading the CMYK as a gray.

I print using the CMYK palette but engrave with RGB.

Jeff Heinrichs
07-05-2017, 10:57 AM
It brings me full circle to not understanding why the vector cutting jobs that I've previously ran that employ many different color profiles have been super straightforward (make sure the RGB color values match the Trotec color values) and the jobs are a no brainer. It feels like it's something in the difference between vector and raster that is kicking my butt here.

I think tonight when I get back to the laser I will add a vector cut to this same artwork and see if that cuts like I've done dozens of times in the past.

Scott Shepherd
07-05-2017, 11:08 AM
The document color settings could be different. For what it's worth, the xml file has CMYK and RGB values in it, which allows both to work. However, if you weren't using that palette, and you are just picking a color that looks right, it will certainly cause an issue.

I don't pretend to understand the conversion process for vector graphics. It's quite complex, which is why I set things up and never touch them once they are working :)

What could be happening is that the color space is converting it to a color that is out of tolerance for the color mapping for that color to work in JCX.

The fact that I opened it with my default color space settings and it worked tells me there's something on the Corel side that is not set up correctly.

Kev Williams
07-05-2017, 11:08 AM
FWIW here--

I've always been a bit puzzled by all the CYMK-RGB issues many people seem to have. None of my machines have ever cared what color palette I use. The GCC has a "manual color fill" mode, and the colors you choose are strictly for choosing the order of engraving or for changing settings for a particular part of your project. No artificial power changes are created by the machine in this mode--for that there's "black/white" mode, which converts colors to b/w halftone.

As for my LS900. In normal use I've always used grayscale mode. Like most grayscale modes, there's a gradient adjustment slider to lighten or darken, usually from 0 to 100, default 50. I keep this slider at 0, as this keeps all colors at full power. The only time I change the slider is if I'm running bitmap artwork since bitmaps at 0 will engrave all black. :)

Scott Shepherd
07-05-2017, 12:41 PM
None of my machines have ever cared what color palette I use.

The machine probably cares more than the operator ;)

I believe the issue is deeper in the back end of the software and how it converts colors. My guess is at it's core, the machines are RGB. That means anything that is not RGB has to, at some point, get converted to RGB. It's how the internal code handles that and what process it uses to do it that makes the difference between poor/good/great results.

It's been my experience that you should try to get it close to the format that's closest to the format that's at it's core before sending anything over. The closer you get to that, I believe, the better the predictability of the outcome will be. Doesn't mean you can't do it another way, it just means that if you do, then some calculation, somewhere along the line, is going to take place without your control. You may or may not be pleased with that result.

Jeff Heinrichs
07-05-2017, 1:12 PM
More good points. That got me to thinking, I may try putting this job through Illustrator and send it to the laser. I'm curious if the results will be different.

Gary Hair
07-05-2017, 6:52 PM
It would sure be nice if there was a single button that you could click on that set "RGB" for EVERYTHING! I'm sure there are lots of people who, like us, don't need to have custom settings for monitors, printers, rip, etc., and just want whatever color value you select to be the one that actually leaves the program and ends up at your "printer" device!

Jeff Heinrichs
07-05-2017, 7:22 PM
Amen to that Gary!

Steve - I just tried the .tsf JobControl file you had no trouble with on your end and it works fine on my end, so you are correct this is some setting within CorelDraw.

Jeff Heinrichs
07-05-2017, 8:28 PM
Finally success with a test engraving.

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In the engraving above I made a black square, green fill, blue text and a red circle and all are different engraving steps except a final cut step for the red circle. All the colors were separate power and speed settings and it finally worked.

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Here are the exact steps I went through to get this to work for me. These steps were shared with me by Steve, but for whatever reason or sequence of steps I was trying to go through it continued to escape me and not work properly.

I hope if anyone else has issues these steps provide them guidance towards getting their issue resolved. There are other ways to succeed, but this is what worked for me.

Step 1. Turn off all Color Palettes
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Step 2. Open or turn on Trotec color palette (This file may be on your Trotec Job Control CD or Steve or I can share with you). This may also work if you enable an RGB only palette, if you have another laser, or if don't have the Trotec color palette available.
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Step 3. Enable - Simulate Color Management Off
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Step 4. Save all settings as default
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Good luck and thanks to everyone, especially Steve for the assistance!!!

Jeff Heinrichs
07-05-2017, 8:38 PM
Here is the logo in CorelDraw and the status bars, I noticed the RGB values at the bottom right this time..

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Here is how the successful job looked in Job Control
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Here was a successful test run
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Scott Shepherd
07-05-2017, 8:44 PM
Woooo Hooooo! Great news Jeff! Glad you got it going. Years ago, there was a document floating around that showed all the settings for setting up CorelDraw. I can't locate it, but I also remember seeing a few pages in a "what's new" file with one of the JCX releases, maybe around 10.4.

Really happy that it's resolved.