Hi all!
Looking to buy a new A4 laser printer but can't decide what to get. I'll be printing vector graphics and want the biggest possible color gamut.
I see some printers are Pantone approved. Can I pick a pms color from the Corel pallette and get a matching pms color printed? What do I need to make that happen?
/Niklas
Well you can, sort of.
Pantone colors are what is referred to as "spot colors" and a laser printer is going to try and produce an equivalent spot color by mixing CYMK toner. There are some Pantone colors that just can't be simulated using CYMK. In other words they're out of gamut. Green and orange are a couple of colors that most any color laser are going to have trouble with - Pantone approved or not.
That being said, a Pantone approved color laser should give you acceptable results for basic proofing purposes. It really depends on how fussy your clients are.
Dan
Thank you,
I understand that many pms colors are not possible to reproduce on a cmyk device. My biggest concern is the workflow. Are the printdrivers set up to recognize named spot colors (like a RIP for a large format inkjet)? I dont want to look up every CMYK-value for every specific pms I want to use. Just use the pantone palette in Corel. Just choose for example Panton 300, and Pantone 300 comes out the printer.
What brand of printer would be recommended?
Niklas
Niklas,
I use a Xerox Phaser 6130 that I purchased for the following reasons:
It works relatively well except that it seems to have some sort of an issue printing in landscape out of CorelDraw when using the PostScript driver. The workaround is to use a PPD (PostScript Printer Description) file. It's not the most elegant solution but it does the job.
When it's time to replace it I will likely go with an Oki tabloid printer essentially for it's media handling capabilities. It's not Pantone approved as far as I know and it only emulates PostScrpt 3. For what I have in mind these are relatively minor inconveniences though.
I guess it all depends on how you plan to use the printer and what your expectations are.
The best way I've found to buy a printer is to put a couple of CorelDraw files on a jump drive and then hit as many resellers as you can and try and talk them into printing out a couple of your files. That way you're going to get a real world comparison that's relevant to your situation and not some mumbo-jumbo sales oriented comparison where they print out a graphic optimized for their printer.
I'm sure others on this forum are familiar with other printers that are Pantone approved. If you're patient I'm sure they'll chime in.
I know with the Xerox Phase line of printers they will provide a CorelDraw Pantone palette that is optimized for their printer. That's the palette I use in CorelDraw for anything I'm sending to the Phaser. If you "hover" the mouse pointer over a particular colour on the palette a "pop-up" will indicate the named/numbered Pantone colour.
The real expert on all this is David Milisock but I haven't seem him on this forum for a day or two.