Terrible printer colour problems

[Artyboots]

I haven’t had to do a print job for a while. Having problems getting xara to print colour acceptably.

Everything is coming out very saturated, and the blue is really BLUE. By that I mean it just sucks everything into bright blue all around it – so there’s no way to get purple. I’ve tried everything. I have the updated driver for the laser printer that I’m using. I’ve read everything, and tried to go in to the printer profiles in Xara to see if any difference. However, in Designer pro + there is an error in this menu and if you select an alternative print colour profile you cannot save. It actually returns an error that concerns the size of something. It’s nothing to do with the printer profiles at all. Try setting another ICC profile and saving it and you’ll see what I mean

Why has everything gone so vivid? Why the blue so super vivid? I’m designing in subtle pastel shades and it’s coming out like a garish children’s book.

Bought a screen calibrator. No improvement. Problem persists. Please help.

Thanks.

Ali

[Acorn]

Ali, have you all-right prints from other applications?
Have you run a maintenance cycle on your printer?

Acorn

[behzad]

Output your design in pdf-x1 and the load it into acrobat. From acrobat try printing it.

[gwpriester]

This problem is amusing in a way. It used to be, why are the colors I print so much duller than the colors I see on the screen.

Behzad has the answer I think. Because PDF/X is converting the RGB colors to the lower gamut CMYK colors.

You might also try changing the Window > Show Printer Colors setting to Show Profiled Colors.

[Artyboots]

This problem is amusing in a way. It used to be, why are the colors I print so much duller than the colors I see on the screen.

Behzad has the answer I think. Because PDF/X is converting the RGB colors to the lower gamut CMYK colors.

You might also try changing the Window > Show Printer Colors setting to Show Profiled Colors.

Hi All, sorry for the delay in replying. Have been fighting this all day long. Put everything back to defaults. Checked everything was looking ok. Am unable to try other print profiles in Xara because that menu is broken. Tried every program I had and yes Egg you are right the problem is in everything. HOWEVER, I uninstalled the Brother driver and downloaded their whole suite for that printer. I printed a card out from their own mini software that is bundled. PERFECT. Correct violets and purples. Correct blues. But that is the only place where the driver appears to work.

I am baffled as I never had this problem until quite recently. I can't live without using purple. Tired of seeing everything blue. Isn't blue supposed to be hard to achieve? Well I have no problem. Typical! Am thinking of buying a new printer but this is a gorgeous thing and not old and I have a lot of money invested in its toner. And how heartbreaking would it be to get a new printer and find I had the same problem.

Not really sure what to do next. Advertise for clients who only use the colour blue?

Various images, so you can sympathise and suggest. But I am all out of ideas. I have meticulous trouble shooted (Shot) this, in a way I haven't had to do since the early nineties!

Have a fancy monitor, fancy graphics card, nice computer. WHAT DOES IT WANT FROM ME?

[Artyboots]

Was too depressed to attach images. Maybe later. I absolutely hate having printer problems. Just not used to it in the modern age!

[Artyboots]

Just ordered a new printer! Devoted enough time to this. Wonder why the ICC menu in xara isn't working, though.

[gwpriester]

Does the ICC menu only work when you are creating a PDF/X file?

[Artyboots]

Maybe I am talking about the wrong thing. There is a VIEW menu which lists different print profiles. It isn't working AFAICT. You can change the profile but you can't apply or save without getting a message about graphic size of something you aren't doing.

[Artyboots]

Also, re the above I will double check. But it still doesn't explain the weird warning.