Epson SC-T3100X Does Not Print Colors Properly

[Yavuz]

Hello;
I am using an Epson SC-T3100X printing machine. The colors in the prints are not what I wanted. Black color is printing incorrectly. How can I fix the colors? How can I darken black color in printing?

[zedonet]

Hello, do you print with regular inks or sublimation inks? On what media do you print (e.g. plain paper, coated inkjet paper, glossy paper)?
A color profile improves color reproduction, especially if you use special inks or non-standard paper.

We offer a color profiling service. Here is a link to an article that explains our profiling service:
https://www.printfab.de/profiles.html

Here is another link that explains profiling for sublimation printing:
https://www.turboprint.info/support/viewtopic.php?t=8082

[zedonet]

PS: You wrote that black should be darker, so maybe you want to print deep black on film for UV exposure for screen printing.
We recommend the following PrintFab driver settings for the Epson SC-T3100 printer:

- in the print dialog, "Printer Features" -> "Special settings screen printings:

printfab-win-sct7200-screenprinting-1.png (28.63 KiB) Viewed 3059 times

Halftone Screen Mode = "Single Black"
Adjust "Screen Ink Saturation" as necessary

If black is not deep enough even with the setting 400%, we recommend to use special black UV blocking ink or to convert the printer to "All Black" with an All Black ink cartridge set.

- in section "PrintFab Settings", tab "Main":

printfab-win-sct7200-screenprinting-2.png (22.65 KiB) Viewed 3059 times

Quality = 2400dpi
Paper = "Transparent Paper"

You can find the detailed description of the screen printing options in the PrintFab PDF manual, chapter 7 "Special settings for screen printing (PrintFab Pro XL only)", page 46.

And there is an article on our web site that also covers additional topics like printing color separations:

https://www.zedonet.com/en_support_silkscreen.phtml

[Yavuz]

The ink I use is magic. I am printing on glass. no white paint. I use the same ink on the Epson R2400 machine. The rip I use is different. But the colors are very good. Now I use the same paint on the Epson SC-T3100x machine. I am printing on the same material. My rip program is PrintFab but my colors are terrible. There is no black color.

[zedonet]

The SC-T3100X uses a mix of CMY for black instead of black ink with certain media settings:

A) Glossy / Semiglossy / Luster / Photo Paper Generic: only CMY inks used
B) all other media incl. Plain Paper, Matte paper: black K ink used

If you are currently printing with one of the media settings listed in A), please retry with the media setting "Enhanced Matte" or similar.

[Yavuz]

Because the material I print on is transparent. The paper I chose is transparent paper light.
Does this paper also use black ink?

[zedonet]

The setting "Transparent Light" prints with all 4 inks including black. Can you post comparison photos of prints made with R2400 and SC-T3100X?

[Yavuz]

r2400.jpeg (215.5 KiB) Viewed 2834 times

Epson R2400

T3100x.jpeg (220.58 KiB) Viewed 2834 times

Epson SC-T3100X
We printed on the Epson SC-T3100X machine with PrintFab. We made the PrintFab Settings. But we can't get the color we want. We also want to reduce the colors in PrintFab. But when printing, it looks like we entered too many colors.

renk kalibrasyon cihazı data color.jpg (209.02 KiB) Viewed 2834 times

There is a color calibration device. What settings should I make in PrintFab when calibrating?
When calibrating, how should I adjust with images? Would you tell?

[zedonet]

Thank you for sending the photos. Both prints can be improved by creating a color profile. A separate color profile is required for a combination of printer + ink + paper / print medium (in your case the print medium is glass).

I recommend to create two color profiles, one for
R2400 + magic ink + glass
and one for
SC-T3100X + magic ink + glass

You sent a photo of your Spyder color measurement device, so you probably also have a software to create ICC profiles.

Please read these articles that explain how to create your own ICC profiles:

- if your ICC profiling software provides a color target that you can print from other software like Photoshop:

https://www.turboprint.info/support/viewtopic.php?t=7459

- if your ICC profiling software can print directly to PrintFab (the screenshots are for the software X-Rite i1Profiler):

https://www.turboprint.info/support/viewtopic.php?t=8028

[Yavuz]

The profile we made with the color calibration device was very bad. We cannot get the desired result in black in the prints. Black is not completely black. What do you recommend we do?

[zedonet]

If "very bad" means that colors are correct but black is not very deep, this may be a limitation of the combination of the special transparent print medium and the inks. Do you use original Epson ink or a special ink?

I recommend to try our profiling service. When printing the profile color chart, you can select the ink amount, e.g. "300". When we receive your printed profile chart, we can measure the density of the base colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). If the density is not high enough, we can assist in increasing ink volume further.

Our profiling service is explained in the PrintFab PDF manual, chapter 8 / page 19.

Also please have a look at the following web page:

https://www.printfab.net/profiles.html