Color Profiles for Variations in Engraving Powers

[Scott Shepherd]

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]

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]

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]

Where "standard" is there are the following options:

ProcessMode.jpg

[Mayo Pardo]

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]

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.

Color Management.JPGDocument Color Settings.JPG

[Jeff Heinrichs]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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!