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Printing out of Illustrator gives green tint to all color

Community Beginner ,
Apr 29, 2021 Apr 29, 2021

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Having the toughest time figuring this out. I've changed color settings (RGB/CMYK) and messed around with color profiles but always gives me green-ish colors printing from Illustrator. 

 

Funny thing is, I set some keynote document up and use the same colors to print, and it works totally fine. If Keynote can, why can't illustrator???

 

I'm using the Canon IR Advanced 3330 printer. Any help is appreciated. 

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Jun 07, 2023 Jun 07, 2023

When gray tones print with a slightly green or red cast or even both from one end to the other in the same print job it is sometimes the fault of the printer. The first large format printer we bought for our shop was a Roland VersaCAMM thermal inkjet printer. It worked great for the most part. But we went through hell on any occasion we tried to print things with a neutral gray, such as brushed aluminum textures, simulated diamond plate, etc. The printer just physically couldn't print a perfectl

...

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Community Expert ,
Apr 29, 2021 Apr 29, 2021

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Changing back and forth between document color mode will only make it worse.

 

How is your color management set up?

 

Which document color mode is this originally?

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Community Expert ,
Apr 29, 2021 Apr 29, 2021

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If you like your Keynote with no color profile, then in Illustrator

File >> Document Colro Mode >> CMYK (as that is a CMYK laser printer)

Edit >> Color Settings >> emulate Illustrator 6

Edit >> Assign profile >> don't color manage

 

Check it look good on a color calibrated screen then print.

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 29, 2021 Apr 29, 2021

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Thanks for the tip. I tried it and it's still printing out greenish, especially the grays. 

 

I'm starting to give up printing out of illustrator and finding other methods to print out such as keynote or just pdf or something if it works. 

 

I just don't understand how keynote is fine and illustrator is a complete mess. blows my mind. 

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Explorer ,
Jun 07, 2023 Jun 07, 2023

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I know this is a late response, sorry - but as I just started my sublimation business, I am getting this same problem. If I do NOT start with a NEW doc in cmyk, it keeps reverting everything to RGB. Even then, it has only worked "most" of the time. Sadly, when placing or opening (and then copy and pasting) an image, even one I created from scratch in an RGB doc, Illustrator is restructing it as RGB. WHY? The print copies shows grey. The screen shows grey. The screen colors match the print. It's an Epson ET-2850 using an ICC profile from the ink manufacturer to adjust for their ink, and on solid blacks, it works! On some greys, it works!? On other greys... no? WHAT? WHY? It's not my heat press or shirt (cause text works fine on hard objects and by the pics, you can see the colors working??), it's clearly not my printer ... it's illustrator using RGB to make grey or black and seemingly random??? It's not the unique Hippoo ink ICC profile for the printer because that is matching original image quality quite well. And, I've tried the solutions MikeGondek listed (and I appreciate those) - but that hasn't fixed it. The attached pics - the triangle is excessively green: but - A NEW cmyk print doc. Instead of redrawing the triangle, I imported it form the bad RGB doc and used a new fill to 50% K as previously noted (And on reopen, illustrator is not reverting it to RGB, so the CMYK "appears" to be holding??). You can see on the star wars attachment - color on page is absolutely grey. But in print, clearly, the software was using an RGB code that resulted in green (and no, I have no ink shortages). I've been designing for years and never had this problem. I would not have even KNOWN about this if I had not started sublimating because on paper - this looks right. However, sublimation requires colors to be a true, genuine CMYK, not RGB, so when transferred, these problems do not exist and I have NO idea what to do. I am totally defeated by this. Any solutions would be great. I am running the most recent versions of Adobe for PC. I pay a lot for this subscription and only use 2 programs... so I pay a lot for things I don't even use ... but it "was" worth it up until this mess. I am 3 weeks into trying to fix this and searching the internet for answers.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 07, 2023 Jun 07, 2023

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When gray tones print with a slightly green or red cast or even both from one end to the other in the same print job it is sometimes the fault of the printer. The first large format printer we bought for our shop was a Roland VersaCAMM thermal inkjet printer. It worked great for the most part. But we went through hell on any occasion we tried to print things with a neutral gray, such as brushed aluminum textures, simulated diamond plate, etc. The printer just physically couldn't print a perfectly even gray. I don't understand why. I could wrap the end of a print around to the edge of the other end and the gray would be different regardless of the artwork having the same gray value across the design. Our problem was solved when we finally retired that printer and switched to using a HP Latex 360 printer (also with a different RIP application). No more grayscale problems.

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Explorer ,
Jun 10, 2023 Jun 10, 2023

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Thank you a LOT. I am adding an epson et-15000 (stupid to keep spending $$ when I still don't have this down), but it is a little more reliable of a printer. So, hopefully I see the problem resolve. I just can't justify going to a purpose-built sublimation printer at the low qualities they offer or a sawgrass that has a high-quality mode but clearly overcharges for it. So, I will be giving this a try.

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Community Expert ,
Jun 07, 2023 Jun 07, 2023

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This sounds like you might have double color-management going on. i.e. perhaps the Canon is doing it's own on top of what you are doing in Illustrator. If you choose to let Illustrator do the color management, you MUST turn off any such management on your printer, and vice versa.

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Explorer ,
Jun 10, 2023 Jun 10, 2023

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Thank you, Brad. So, this was a good idea and I have double checked it: Epson in default ICC and let software manage it. Same problem. Epson in default ICC and make software use custom ICC built for this ink. Epson in custom ICC built for this ink, and both software managed and custom ICC managed. Same issues.  So, as of today, I flushed all the cartridges.... lost a LOT of ink. But, in the event there was something wrong, I dumped it all. I replaced it with the same brand of ink and same paper. Attached is a photo of the sublimation color test page before dumping the ink: the greys look amazing (10% K, 20% K, 30% K... and so on). However, on the before ink change cloth, you can see that it is definitively green on the grey line. This is a NEW, illustrator CMYK print 8.5x11, 300 dpi. Printed with the software using its own color management profile and the printer using the custom ink-type override ICC profile. Then you can see the print after changing the ink. Nothing has changed (and you might be able to see that the purples are anything but purple). So - not the ink and apparently, not the way the printer is combining the ink. However, I changed the software and hardware profiles to custom ink management and you can see in that t-shirt press that it's still a no-go - using identical icc profiles and I'm getting no farther. The grey's are as green as a frog. Again, these are not RGB values. I personally checked each one to ensure that it was a K value. My other option is to try a different printer (I have one coming), but printing on paper won't matter since the paper print is accurate. My other other option is to try a different color profile for illustrator and the printer and I'll be doing that, too. I've also tried major variations in heat press since I was told that could cause a green "tint" to blck - but no difference. 😞

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Community Expert ,
Jun 11, 2023 Jun 11, 2023

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There's some serious problems in your ICC profiles .... Your yellows (e.g. the gradient bar on the left) should not have cyan in them. My other guess would have been a contaminated print head, but based on this print, that's not the issue. It's definitely a bad ICC in your chain.

"I personally checked each one to ensure that it was a K value"

Doesn't matter, your printer is an RGB printer so that K value is being sent as its equivalent RGB and then converted to CMYK by your printer.

By the way, I downloaded that same test page that you used, and it's not at all CMYK...it's an RGB image. Which, in the end doesn't really matter as, like the K values, any CMYK data will be sent as RGB anyway.

 

How are you printing these tests? What sustem? Are they all from PDFs/Acrobat? from Illustrator?

What did you use to create a custom ICC profile, or was it supplied to you? (Can you upload it here?)

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Community Expert ,
Jun 11, 2023 Jun 11, 2023

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here's a true CMYK test file.. a simple one.

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Explorer ,
Jun 11, 2023 Jun 11, 2023

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Thank you for the file and again, thank you for all this help. This has been beyond taxing - even having someone look at it with me means a lot. I will run a test this afternoon with our pdf (out of illustrator, acrobat, and photoshop). Those pics I uploaded, I created by hand in illustrator, in a cmyk doc. I uploaded pics of them here, not the actual pdf file. So, they should technically not be RGB... and should send to the printer as cmyk, or am I misunderstanding that? I do understand RGB monitor vs printer differences. What gets me is that the printed page has the right color appearance, but the issue with ink discoloration doesn't show until I go to transfer this via sublimation and yet, that should not be having this problem if the printer is only using black to generate black. I have now printed direct out of illustrator and photoshop, and I've exported out of both into a pdf, and tried printing from all 4 methods with the same results (I've attached the color chart in .ai I was using). I will try printing what you sent me out of illustrator both with the default print and illustrator ICC and the custom the custom ink mfg ICC (apparently, I'm supposed to have to use the custom ICC as this is sublimation dye ink?). It won't let me upload an .icc or .zip - here is the link to the ink mfg list of icc profiles (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1b5sQi1fiho5oG8AqBKyK40Lu0scFp1dB) - the Epson ET-2850 is mine.

 

I operate windows 10, most updated adobe software possible (subscription),

Color management: Document profile: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2,

color handling: illustrator to determine colors (only option),

printer profile (I either use the sRGB IEC61966-2.1 OR the custom ICC I sent you the link for),

rendering intent: relative colorimetric.

Epson ET-2850 Color Correction: Custom -> Advanced: Either ICM (with the Hippoo ink custom ICM), or if testing this without the custom ICC profile: color correction: Automatic.

For photoshop:

Color management: Printer manages color if using the custom ICC

Standard: Photoshop manages colors: Epson IJ Printer 07 (default)

Normal printing for both

Relative colorimetric

Black point compensation: I've done it both with this on and off

 

Like I said, the paper print is indeed very nice. I have a WF 7310 and we use Adobe lightroom to print some extremely high end landscape photography for my son (and sometimes we'll export the profile to a 6-color separation printer a local studio has for when he's doing even more serious work for someone). I've printed the same ai I uploaded on both printers and on paper, it looks good. I will upload the results of my print and the transfer as soon as I am done. Thank you.

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Explorer ,
Jun 11, 2023 Jun 11, 2023

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Ok, Brad, follow up as promised!! - I went ahead and did a whole bunch of printing. This is on sublimation paper (which should not matter as this problem exists on different brands, too), and then transferred onto a polyester material. All of the heat pressing, temps, and pressures are consistent to rule that out. I used photoshop, illustrator, and acrobat. I did various combinations of profiles between the custom printer profile to default printer profile (epson IJ printer 07), printer managed colors to program managed colors, and hopefully captured enough combinations to be helpful. Thank you again for that file - it looks very clean and amazing in full color. Each attached picture is a side by side of the pressed cloth, and the paper used to press it before the pressing takes place. The green is flawlessly consistent in place of grey.

 

Is it possible that even though the ET-2850 has CMYK tanks, it can't handle more than RGB in code and unless it is pure, pure black, it is still using colors to simulate black and potentially also has a problem that can't handle the grey? For kicks and giggles, I also included an acrobat (custom printer ICC) of your test in greyscale mode and you can see the before and after results). Definitively worse over all and absolutely NOT even greyscale?? I also included a Text document, 100% - 10% black. From an Illustrator doc, cmyk, 16-bit]. To print your file, I just opened it direct, no editing or messing with anything.  The various settings I used are written on the pictures themselves. Anyway, I hope this helps and again, I appreciate your support.

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