Printing accurate CMYK to a desktop colour laser – is it possible?

Question

Hi

I've read a few discussions on this and have come across some saying that it isn't possible because desktop colour laser printers convert my CMYK InDesign doc to RGB and then convert it back to CMYK for printing I think I have that right).

I have a Brother colour laser printer (HL-L3240CDW) and note that when I want to print to it I only have an option of 'Composite RGB' in the output panel. Composite CMYK is greyed out. This is presumably the bit where it is converting my CMYK colours to RGB before printing them as CMYK. It only has CMYK toners.

The double colour conversion produces results that are way out. A pure magenta prints with cyan, or black, dots through it making it really dark, a pure yellow clearly has magenta mixed in etc.

I have been in contact with Brother and even though they were very helpful, they haven't been able to help at all. I did establish that there is no PPD/driver for this printer that I can download. I also asked them about a colour profile that I might be able to apply to improve the colour conversion but they didn't think there was one.

They recently emailed me a PDF that had very pale blocks of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black that they asked me to print. I printed that and the colours appeared to reproduce cleanly. The black had a little bit more than pure black going on, but the other colours were clean. When I showed the output to them they said the printer was performing to specification and there was nothing else they could do.

What I'd like to know is whether there is any way to get more accurate CMYK printing from my printer or is it just not possible? Would any other apps do it better – Illustrator, Acrobat, etc?

Thanks

stevej61370215 · Accepted Answer

It turns out my instincts were correct regarding finding and using a PPD from another source.

I found that Brother had PPDs for older, and other, colour laser printers so I've spent a few hours playing around with those.

Their CUPS printer drivers included extra options to tweak but they were quite basic and didn't really change much. However I eventually managed to find a 'BR-script' driver for one of their other printers which gave me the option of 'Composite CMYK'.

So now that the CMYK > RGB > CMYK conversion is not there the result is I now have great, accurate CMYK colour printing.

Success and all it cost was a few hours of testing, a quite a bit of toner!

Thanks for your input, and hopefully this is of use to anyone else in this position.

James Gifford—NitroPress · Answer

Printing accurate colors requires a color profile that exactly matches and counterbalances — more or less — a printer's deviation from ideal rendering. If Brother doesn't have one, and you can't find any third party who has developed one, the best you will be able to do is use a calibrated loop to get close to "perfect" output. That usually involves screen calibration using a screen sensor, and print calibration using a spectrographic analyzer. You set up pure CMYK, calibrate the screen to show it correctly, print, analyze the printed output for variation... repeat until you have the smallest possible variation from pure color using the two profiles developed. (That's a bit simplified as well.)

Most SOHO printers these days are designed and calibrated to give vibrant, showy color from standard office apps and the like. That can mean it's integral for them to use blended colors to give renderings more 'pop' or vibrance. Which can mean it's difficult to impossible to create a truly neutral, balanced profile using any means. And as you note, nearly all have RGB color input only, since that's the universal standard for office and lower-end apps. (On the positive side, even relatively cheap printers can do excellent, if not calibrated color these days.)

I won't say it's impossible, not without knowing many details about your printer, system, resources, needs etc. But I think your choices are going to be "get pretty darn close using the old eyeball for color adjustment" or upgrade to a pro-level printer that does have both factory color profiles and calibration features.

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