Expert: Kevin Stohlmeyer - 2/1/2011

Question
Hello Kevin,
Have you had experience with printing color issues between the adobe creative suite cs5 and the HP 5500 DesignJet 42 inch plotter? We upgraded from CS2 to CS5 in October and have not been able to print an accurate color image to that plotter since. We have updated printer drivers and tried endless calibration techniques. Very much at a loss as to what to do next. If you could assist or provide a knowledgable resource, we would very much appreciate the help. Our documents use pantone (in cmyk values) and photography (RGB).

Answer
Hi Clare,

Im not familiar with that model HP large-format, but in the past I've had good luck either printing from PDFs only or if you are printing from IL or PS, to only use RGB. The printer handles RGB better than CMYK.

The best thing to try is to print straight RGB Magenta, Yellow, Cyan and  secondary colors - green, orange, purple/violet, etc. using only the values of the colors as your guide (or default colors). Do not rely on your screen to change them. Then print them out and try the same method using CMYK values (100% C, M, Y & secondary) and see how it turns out.

It may be that your monitor needs to be calibrated or your CS (using Bridge>Edit>Creative Suite Color Settings).

Thanks

Kevin