We are a custom performance apparel manufacturing that does custom sublimated graphics in house, and we've noticed a consistent issue with some of our ombres. When the pieces are exported from Corel into PDFs, and when they are then printed on our sublimation printers, there are faint streaks of either red or blue that show up within the transition of the ombre.
Speaking with our printer technician, he informed us that it was not an issue with out printers, but rather with the way Corel generates the ombres. We've attempted exporting the pieces as different file types, changing some of the ombre settings in the Properties tag, trying different CMYK color values, and nothing has yielded any significant results. Turning the images into bitmaps before exporting is off the table, as it changes the CMYK values of our colors and often lowers the resolution too much to be useable. We've also tried similar methods through Adobe Illustrator and ended up with relatively the same results.
The grand majority of our ombres turn out fine, but it happens most consistently with ombres of black-to-white, and one instance of violet-to white, as shown in the images below. These pieces are printed on Tobago spandex. If anyone has encountered a similar problem before and found a working solution, we would love to hear it, as we have been trying to tackle this issue for awhile!
Has it been resolved?
kadashika
Not yet, still ongoing!
Sorry to hear that, TheLineUp.I would very much like to see a PDF (created from the test file you sent perhaps?), that shows these strange "faint streaks of either red or blue" when printed.Haven't got a sublimation printer but would like to see how it works when printed on a latex or UV printer.Would it be possible to create a PDF and post or upload?
Since apparently I can't upload these pictures to this forum for some reason, I have added them to the Drive folder with the test file.
You should be able to see the red-ish coloration occurring in the top half of the black-to-white ombre in the first image, and there's a streak of much more pronounced blue in the middle of the purple piece in the second image.
drive.google.com/.../157WT4_Ga44Fk5xLG5Bp_g8m2NJeB77t_
I started digging into this and as far as I got is that I'm sending the numbers to the PDF that I'm building in CorelDRAW. The left panes is in CorelDRAW the center converted to CMYK image, and the right is a PDF placed into Draw and the color numbers match across the three. We need to figure out if you're doing the same.
Are you building your file with soft proofing turned on? Do you send color managed PDF files to your RIP, meaning do you embed a profile int he PDF? Or do you use an assumed color management process?
Can you post a capture of your PDF setting? All of them please as well as your application, document and color proof, color management settings.
The image below is what the screen looks like with soft proofing turned off, the top is with the center fountain fill converted to a CMYK image in Draw starting with the CMYK build shown in the captures.
The lower is the same except the center was converted to an image in Photo-PAINT and placed. The right panel in both captures is the fountain fill converted to PDF and placed in DRAW.
Even though the center panel displays different the color numbers are the same for all three panels. So, we have and have always had an issue with how CorelDRAW displays complex fills without soft proofing turned on.
Here is a screen capture of how CorelDRAW displays with the color proofing properly turned on. I know this does not solve your issue, but these are steps we need to take to see where the problems are.