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Question

Purple printing as Blue

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
January 6, 2023
5 replies
17522 views

I need help, please. This is driving me bonkers. I have a color I have been using for years that all of a sudden is printing incorrectly. The color is in the Purple family:

PANTONE: 7447 C RGB: R 93; G 71; B 119 HEX/HTML: 5D4777 CMYK: C 77% M 85% Y 6% K 18%

This color is now printing a very bright, almost royal blue. I've replicated it on multiple printers (in and out of our office network), using several devices (Mac & PC), and even with old files I haven't edited recently. I have tried changing the shade of purple and it's still printing blue, the shade of the blue changes. So far, this has happened with PDF, jpeg, and png files. Photoshop and Indesign as well. The files on my screen are purple, but the prints are blue.

The only way I've gotten the color to work correctly is by printing directly from Photoshop with Photoshop Managing colors. However once saved, the color changes to blue when printed outside of the Photoshop environment. Not sure what's going on. This just started this week. I printed something in December with no issues. The attached picture shows the correct color on the right and the incorrect on the left.

macOS

This topic has been closed for replies.

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Danielle5C64Author

Known Participant

Latest update. Proofs from the printer came back. All are blue. The printer gave me some more information on each sign that I've attached. I did send them the color information. These are yard signs and all four options printed in different shades of blue.

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Phillip Noury

Participant

Im having a similar issue. youth sports team photographer ...although till now I've been blaming the new to printer I purchased ...but now after looking for discussion ( and finding yours ) I am wondering if its something I'm missing.

Did you find a solution ?

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

@Phillip Noury

Is the issue blue turning purple? Or purple turning blue?

Your situation may or may not be similar.

1) What colour mode and ICC profile describe the input image?

2) wha colour values make the blue?

3) can you provide screenshots of your print settings? What ICC profile or driver settings describe the output of the printer?

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Danielle5C64Author

Known Participant

Still waiting to hear back from a commercial printer if they have any luck, but I'm still at a loss for our office printers.

It's not a print head issue. It's happening on multiple printers at multiple work sites. So different printers, the same exact issue. My in-house printer is a Xerox AltaLink C8155. I've been trying to find the ICC profile for that printer, but no luck. Checking ColorSync on my Mac just says CMYK, unknown or remote profile. Digging through the printer's documentation also revealed nothing.

Tried calibrating my monitor. Tried calibrating the printer. Test prints on the printer are normal. Happening on both PC/Mac. I'm at a loss for what to even try anymore. A lot of my work is printed by everyday users on office printers, so telling users to use a certain ICC profile when printing isn't really an option.

What's bizarre is it seems to be mostly limited to 'previews' of the files. For example, if I save it as a jpeg/png, the issue happens. If I print based on a preview on the web, the issue happens. If I print directly from PDF on my computer, or any Adobe program, except Photoshop, the color prints as normal. It seems to be limited to mostly image-based formats.

TheDigitalDog

Inspiring

I've been trying to find the ICC profile for that printer, but no luck. Checking ColorSync on my Mac just says CMYK, unknown or remote profile. Digging through the printer's documentation also revealed nothing.

By @Danielle5C64

Why, oh why are you sending CMYK to your office printer?

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

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Danielle5C64Author

Known Participant

It does the exact same thing with RGB.

TheDigitalDog

Inspiring

You should always test output using good color reference images designed for that task. The color reference images RGB values are such that they are set for output and are editing and display agnostic. Test the output this way and examine for the same color issues so we know it's not your image-specific issues causing the problems:
http://www.digitaldog.net/files/2014PrinterTestFileFlat.tif.zip
This and other such documents can also be downloaded at http://www.digitaldog.net/

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

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Well the first thing I always check are the printer heads and ink cartridges.

Clogged heads can cause colors failures.

Next is to ensure the image color profile is the same (sRGB works best for me on screen, CMYK is what I use for professional print process). I use the ICC profile recommended my print professional to match his inks & paper stock.

And of course the colors on your display must be calibrated to ensure that what you see on screen is not some random aberration.

Hope that helps.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

Is this a spot colour channel or is it made from RGB or CMYK values in the same colour mode document?

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Danielle5C64Author

Known Participant

This is the swatch. I'm in CMYK mode. Let me know if you need to know more.

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

What CMYK ICC profile is assigned to the document, or what CMYK ICC profile is set in colour settings to be assumed for CMYK documents that are not colour managed with an explicit profile?

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