• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

How to Design & Print Neon Green/Blue etc...

Community Beginner ,
Aug 21, 2022 Aug 21, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Is there any way to design and print with NEON green (like 39FF14) or bright blue (like 0000FF) ?

I know this is RGB and when I use CYMK it is all converted to some nasty green and blue and searching online, it seems "impossible" to print in these cool colors? Is this true or is there some workaround?

 

I am using the Canon Pixma iX6820 which is a decent photo printer with CYMK and 2 blacks.

 

Theoretically I cont see why these color catridges cannot make some color but .... I hope I am missing something easy to fix this?

TOPICS
Windows

Views

2.7K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Adobe
Guide ,
Aug 21, 2022 Aug 21, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

No, it's not easy to fix.

I found a description of this printer model and it appears to be an RGB device, even though it uses CMYK cartridges. This means that the printer driver is responsible for color separation and decides how much ink should be applied to each cartridge to print the desired color.

You can influence this process only by using the settings provided in the printer's control panel. 

With the help of specialists or on your own, you can try to build a printer profile. In most cases this will have a positive effect on the quality of color reproduction. However, even in this case, you will not be able to accurately print colors that fall outside the gamut of your device.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 23, 2022 Aug 23, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

jazz-y writes: "I found a description of this printer model and it appears to be an RGB device, even though it uses CMYK cartridges. This means that the printer driver is responsible for color separation and decides how much ink should be applied to each cartridge to print the desired color."

 

yes that’s right, actually any inkjet printer which is used with the manufacturer's driver software (i.e. it's used without RIP software) should be treated as an RGB device

 

An accurate printer profile can indeed help with achieving maximum gamut. If the print's not revealing the ability to print vibrant enough colour on Canon brand semigloss paper, then that’s probably a limitation the OP will need to live with 

 

I suggest they try this RGB testimage, it has some pretty vibrant colour

 

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer:: co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 21, 2022 Aug 21, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

There's no "trick". It's all down to what those particular inks can reproduce on that particular paper. That's the limit. That's the printer's color gamut.

 

Don't convert to CMYK for inkjet printers. CMYK is strictly for commercial offset presses. Inkjet printers are RGB devices that expect RGB data. If you send it CMYK data, it will be converted back to RGB first, and then an internal conversion in the printer driver to whatever inks are used.

 

If this printer comes with its own icc profiles for different papers, this is easy to preview. Just soft proof to the profile and you see directly on screen the color you get. That's the gamut limit.

 

The key to all this is color management and icc profiles. That's where all this is put into a systematic and predictable framework. Any color space can be described in an icc profile, which also defines the gamut boundaries for that color space.

 

That's not just the printer's color space, but also the document color space. Your example green 39FF14 is not the same color in sRGB and Adobe RGB, for instance. But you may not see the difference on screen, because Adobe RGB 39FF14 is probably outside your monitor's gamut. Same principle, gamut boundary, can't be reproduced.

 

And finally, hex numbers are not absolute numbers. They don't define a color until you also define the color space. It's just base 16 notation for ordinary RGB numbers. Numbers are always specific to color space. The same visual color will yield different numbers in different color spaces.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 22, 2022 Aug 22, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied


@jayl5949062 wrote:

Is there any way to design and print with NEON green (like 39FF14) or bright blue (like 0000FF)…it seems "impossible" to print in these cool colors? Is this true or is there some workaround?…Theoretically I cont see why these color catridges cannot make some color…


 

One reason the cartridges can’t make some colors is that cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks simply can’t be as saturated as an RGB pixel. Another reason is that all inks have some impurities which prevent them from achieving their best theoretical saturations. A third reason is that print media is reflective, so it’s naturally limited to the light hitting it. If the light is not bright or not pure white, there is no way the ink can match a highly saturated RGB value coming off of a screen with an intense light source of its own (emitted, not merely reflected). Paper is not a light source like a computer display, so paper can never match a screen in brightness.

 

Below is an illustration of the problem. The solid volume in the middle is a 3D representation of the color gamut of Canon Pixma printer inks on Red River Arctic Polar Gloss paper. (Because the exact color gamut depends on the specific combination of inks and paper used, and pro glossy photo papers tend to have a wider color gamut.)

 

The dots represent the two RGB colors you specified: 39FF14 and 0000FF (assuming sRGB, because the exact color those values produce depends on the RGB color space). I’m guessing the lighter dots might be aliasing in the image where I drew the colors. You can clearly see that the dots are well outside the volume. That means those colors are too far outside the color range that the printer’s inks can reproduce on that high quality paper. It cannot be done.

 

Saturated RGB vs Canon Pixma.gif

 

If this was going to be printed on a commercial printing press (the kind that can cost $1 million), the printing company might offer you the option to add more process color inks to extend the color range, or add two custom-mixed spot color inks (for example, Pantone inks) that are a closer match to your two colors…all at additional cost, of course. But those options are not available on the kinds of inkjet printers we can carry home for under $250. Even if you spent ten times that much money on a pro inkjet printer with extended gamut inks, it would still not be able to reproduce those colors. Print designers are also aware that CMYK is particularly weak in reproducing highly saturated blues.

 

The color limitations of different media are so immovable that being able to work within those limitations and find color palettes that hold up across TV/video displays, papers, packaging, signage, etc. is a valuable skill for a designer. So is studying and understanding principles of color theory and human color perception; for example, to make a color appear more saturated, one option is to surround it with a complementary color to make the viewer’s eye perceive that color as more saturated than the inks can actually achieve.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 22, 2022 Aug 22, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

So mny question would be is this whle printer thing is true then why have I always been able to print nright neon green from MS Word?  Altho now we are talking about this, I just tried and now it converted that neon green to regular green, what in the world is going on with this?  I SWEAR to you that I have printed neon green during many tests in my IT work for clients setting up their printers etc and on mine through probably 10 different printers of my own in the last 25 years, thatI have printed all the RGB bright blue, green, yellow and red colors, vibrant, no issues.  If the printer is incapable, how does it do it from MS Word?  I was almost tempted to just do that and cut them out on the transfer sheet and put on my tshirt (was what this was for, neon green on black really pops) but I ran out of time.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 22, 2022 Aug 22, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied


@jayl5949062 wrote:

So mny question would be is this whle printer thing is true then why have I always been able to print nright neon green from MS Word?  Altho now we are talking about this, I just tried and now it converted that neon green to regular green, what in the world is going on with this?


 

To try and figure this out: When you were printing neon green and other vibrant RGB colors from Word for clients all those years and it looked great, did you normally take the paper out of the printer, see that it looks good on the paper, and then you give it to the client? Or do you take the piece of paper up to the screen, compare the printed color to the screen color, and then you give it to the client?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 24, 2022 Aug 24, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I know what you are asking but all do respect I have been a graphic designer for years and I do know what colors are what and the comparison to the millions different monitors and papers and inks. So here what I am saying is that follow up from you will not help at all in this situation. Bottom line, Word printed Neon green perfectly in the past, on a home inkjet printer, which means it is possible without any special settings, so wondering how did that happen and how can we replicate that from Photoshop or Ill. etc....

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 24, 2022 Aug 24, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

'...Word printed Neon green perfectly in the past.....'

 

It is not Word or Photoshop but the limitation of what colour can be layed down on paper using the Cyan, Magenta,Yellow and Black inks that the printer uses.  Chances are the print from Word was more saturated than the print from Photoshop as it is not color managed so just sends colour values straight to the printer but that still does not give the ability of the printer to print a colour that cannot be made from the inks involved (as demonstrated by Conrad).

Out of interest, I do have a printer (Epson P5000) that has additional inks to extend the gamut, including a green ink cartridge. I plotted the profile of that printer using Canson Baryta II paper and also plotted where that neon green you quote(using sRGB as reference space) lies.

2022-08-24_21-06-37.jpg

The colour is well outside of the gamut of even that printer so won't print here either - no matter what application I ask to print it.

 

Dave

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 25, 2022 Aug 25, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Ok I understand what you are saying but again that doesnt help me... I am not saing Word printed the neon green 100% perfectly because I did not have it professionally analyzed electronically, but my eyes are pretty good in this way and I think from the print I saw back then that 99% of people with any idea what "neon green" is would agree... so not sure again where this can go... But as I said this has not ALWAYS happened, as in right now my Pixma will NOT print that neon green I saw before, and it was too long ago for me to remember how or when I printed that and possible it was not even this printer or could have been with a client's computer. But either way, not special computers or printers, all just "home" equipment. This is why this is so maddening.

If this NEVER happens I would just accept and move on.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Aug 25, 2022 Aug 25, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Seems you've come up with your own solution: Print in MS Word. Nothing else provided seems to satisfy, we can only help based on the facts of basic color management and how Photoshop and other color managed print paths work. 

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 24, 2022 Aug 24, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied


@jayl5949062 wrote:

I know what you are asking but all do respect I have been a graphic designer for years and I do know what colors are what and the comparison to the millions different monitors and papers and inks. So here what I am saying is that follow up from you will not help at all in this situation. Bottom line, Word printed Neon green perfectly in the past, on a home inkjet printer, which means it is possible without any special settings, so wondering how did that happen and how can we replicate that from Photoshop or Ill. etc....


 

With all due respect, I am questioning the statement that neon green printed “perfectly” from Word. I strongly believe that if the color values of the print from Word were measured, they would fall short of the original RGB values. I suspect the print was not compared to the screen, because the difference should be obvious even from Word. I am not the only one in this thread pointing out the technical limitations of CMYK inks, with the data to back it up, not just “well, it looked OK.”

 

What Word and other consumer applications will do is send RGB data to the inkjet printer driver, and the printer driver will do the best it can to convert the RGB values to the printer’s ink color gamut. What I suspect is that, because Photoshop has so many more color options, a color setting might have been set wrong (like converting to the wrong CMYK profile) which could print as a duller green than from Word. But what should happen is that if a color print is set up properly in both Word and Photoshop, to the same printer, on the same paper, the color should print the same. And will only print colors within the color gamut of that printer’s CMYK ink set.

 

If you don‘t want to hear from me any more, that’s OK, no offense taken. I have tried to help. But you will definitely find it very difficult to find anyone else with professional color printing experience to agree that an RGB value like the ones you posted could be reproduced perfectly on a CMYK printer.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 25, 2022 Aug 25, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

See my reply to the other other guy....

So bottom line this convo is going nowhere because I know what I saw... I am not color blind, so maybe instead of arguing about what I saw or didnt we should be focusing on the actual "setup or settings" you are referring to in order to make this as reasonable as possible and maybe it will be close enough.

 

FYI when Word did print neon green, I did not edit any special settings or printer settings etc.... It is as simple as opening an Word doc I have saved and clicking print, and done.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 25, 2022 Aug 25, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

So to keep it simple, any printer can only print a colour that can be made by mixing its inks on paper. That applies whether the printer is profiled or not.  There is no magic formula or setting to produce a colour that can't be made from those inks. It would be like asking someone to paint a wall red using only blue paint.  As has been shown above, the particular colour you specified cannot be made with standard CMYK inks.

However, it will have printed a green within the gamut that can be encompassed by those inks. That colour may have been close enough to the colour displayed on your screen to be seen as a match under whatever lighting you were viewing the print. You have not said whether your display is calibrated and profiled, so what colour is being displayed on your monitor when the colours above are specified may vary on your system and be different to that seen on a calibrated and profiled system. In Word colour profiles are ignored so only the screen calibration is used.

The bottom line is that we cannot advise on settings and set ups to produce the specific green you listed. Nor can we advise how to print an unspecified green, which when viewed under unspecified lighting, looks a visual match to what may be an uncalibrated and unprofiled screen.

 

 

You may want to supply the information requested by Andrew further down the thread, to rule out anything that has been missed.

 

Dave

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 23, 2022 Aug 23, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Fluorescent colours can be printed commercially by adding special ink channels on the press. 

With an inkjet printer, you are limited by the gamut of ink on paper.

 

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer:: co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 24, 2022 Aug 24, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Yes I heard this before too but as I said I was able to do it from Word a while ago, MANY times because I literally have a "PRINT TEST" Word doc that I use to print to test printers with all the different colors on there, without any special printer settings. I cant remeber if I ever did it on THIS particular PIXMA but is it possible some inkets have the capability? I mean thats an answer I already know but I guess the better question is, which ones then or how.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Aug 24, 2022 Aug 24, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Tell you what; provide a Photoshop doc with the green and blue color made there, in whatever color space you're using. Upload a small, 300x300 pixel image to something like Dropbox. 

Then provide as well, the ICC printer profile for your Canon Pixma iX6820 you wish to use. I'll plot the color gamut of that image onto that of the printer. Then we'll know what is or isn't possible using actual colorimetry. 

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 25, 2022 Aug 25, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied


@TheDigitalDog wrote:

Tell you what; provide a Photoshop doc with the green and blue color made there, in whatever color space you're using. Upload a small, 300x300 pixel image to something like Dropbox. 

Then provide as well, the ICC printer profile for your Canon Pixma iX6820 you wish to use. I'll plot the color gamut of that image onto that of the printer. Then we'll know what is or isn't possible using actual colorimetry. 


 

And if you do that, you’ll be the third person in this thread to post a plot of the color value against an inkjet printer’s CMYK gamut, so chances are you’ll the the third person in the thread to show that the printer cannot exactly reproduce #39FF14 (assuming sRGB).

 

Also, since the claim is that it “prints perfectly in Word,” it may not be possible to use a printer profile in that workflow. It’s probably a black-box driver workflow (send it a default Word RGB print stream, and see what the printer driver puts on the page).

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Aug 25, 2022 Aug 25, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied


@Conrad C wrote:

And if you do that, you’ll be the third person in this thread to post a plot of the color value against an inkjet printer’s CMYK gamut, so chances are you’ll the the third person in the thread to show that the printer cannot exactly reproduce #39FF14 (assuming sRGB).

 


Conrad. I'm not assuming sRGB. I'm not assuming any output profile which is why I asked the OP specifically for his/hers. I hate to assume and try never to do so (but I am imperfect). The other three answers are very, very likely to be correct. If I get the OP's image and profile, I will not have to provide the data back based on any assumptions. It will be perfectly colorimetrically proven (to me). To the OP? 

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 25, 2022 Aug 25, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

And dog, I appreciate your scientific approach, maybe this wont work and maybe somehow the times in the past it did it, who knows why, it is what it is, but it is maddening to know I have seen it and not being able to replicate it, especially when I have things I want to print.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 25, 2022 Aug 25, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Ok I understand... I never set up an ICC profile so what's best way to get you what you need?

FYI I am pretty sure I never printed the Word doc with neon green on this printer... only used this printer for couple of years and I am pretty sure never successfully printed neon on this printer, its been a while since I did it. I think my last printer was a Canon MP530 or something like that and as I said worked with other clients printers/PC/Mac as well so unfortunately no idea what combo actualyl worked in the past.

If you want me to setup a new ICC for this printer, LMK which one I will try it and see if there is any difference.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Aug 25, 2022 Aug 25, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied


@jayl5949062 wrote:

Ok I understand... I never set up an ICC profile so what's best way to get you what you need?

Let's back up. If you've never printed using a profile in Photoshop, what have you done to make a print in that product? 

 


@jayl5949062 wrote:

FYI I am pretty sure I never printed the Word doc with neon green on this printer...

But you told us you were able to print this green/blue in Word, but you used another printer???

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 27, 2022 Aug 27, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

"what have you done to make a print in that product? "
What do you mean by this? For example currently I am trying to print some shirt graphic transfer sheets for my brand because I was in a hurry and did not have time to send to my shirt guy to make them. So I designed in Photoshop and inserted the paper and clicked print.  I rarely do this type of work myself, I usually design is fully and then send to my short guy. Last time he did a pretty good job with similar colors.

..."but you used another printer???"
Yes it was most likely another home inkjet printer, not sure why is this an issue? Are you saying there are $80 inkjet Canon out there that can print neon green and the Pixma I have now cant, or......  Its not like I went to a commercial printer with my laptop and borrowed their $1M printer, maybe I am not understanding what are you asking.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Aug 27, 2022 Aug 27, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

@jayl5949062 wrote:

"what have you done to make a print in that product? "
What do you mean by this? 


You used what printer, within Photoshop, setup exactly HOW to make the print if you never used an ICC profile? 

 


@jayl5949062 wrote:


..."but you used another printer???"
Yes it was most likely another home inkjet printer, not sure why is this an issue?

 

Oh yeah, it is.

I'm I saying there are $80 inkjet Canons out there that can print neon green and the Pixma you have now cant? No, but I could and will when you actually supply me with the data I asked for days ago. Until then I again will make no assumptions. 

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines