Printing with Aberdeen Fabrics

Has anyone at HP Graphic Arts in Atlanta (Tim Mitchell?) printed on Aberdeen's fabrics with the Latex 850? If so, what side of the fabric are you using to get the best output. For instance the 5013 Bannerlux has a glossy side and a non glossy side.

Check with Aberdeen, but most of their materials are uncoated, so the side you print on is largely preference. Their website is a little minimalistic so you may need to call them. I usually print on the non-glossy side, Brian usually prints on the glossy side.

If there is a coating on the media, then you can either print on the coating (better color pop, less ink needed) or the uncoated side (more ink, less pop, but a little better fold and crease resistance).

No profiles on the HP Media Solutions Locator for this media that I can see, so you may have to build your own based on the 250% textile defaults, 14pass is good. What RIP are you running? Do you have an external spectrophotometer?

Regards,

Timothy

We are using Caldera GrandRIP v9.2 and I'm profiling with an X-Rite i1pro 2. I thought I remember seeing Aberdeen samples at PRINT13 that Brian had on the glossy side. So far the non glossy side is looking pretty good. I'll test both sides and see what works best.

Thanks Timothy

This is a renegade option I use sometimes, I use it all the time for fabrics and backlit where I cannot use the onboard Spectro, and have used it for light ink load paper, it's something you might try:

First, I create a media at 250% for uncoated Textiles and then build it at 14pass. After I have created the new media (from the Textile 250% setting default) I do not do the onboard calibration, but instead print the chart from Caldera, the ink restriction/Lin chart. All I want is to find the right numbers for the ink restrictions. I look at the Caldera chart and get those numbers, and, once I have them, I go back to the IPS and enter those into the IPS for that media, and then drop the light inks by ten points (you may find a better transition number for this, but I have not had time to really run a series of detailed charts. I would never, ordinarily, have light inks going to 100% in any other calibration I have ever built, and I suspect you might even go lower than 10 points with good results; it's hard to say because the transition are all behind a 'wall' and I cannot see the curves). You can do this selection of the solid inks from either Chroma or from the density readings, but let Caldera show you the ideal number, not relying on the on-board calibration defaults of 100% in all channels. What you will notice is for almost all textiles, 100% is way too much ink; my spectro always suggests a much lower percentage. This will also make your linearization chart much more rational as a result. This will also reduce your print costs.

Once those numbers are confirmed, go to the IPS and enter them and save. Open again to make sure they are secure in the IPS.

Next, cancel the whole process in Caldera and delete the preset entirely, the one you made was only to get your starting numbers in the IPS. Now start again from scratch, but reconnect to the media name with those new numbers in the IPS, these will now be different from any default numbers. Then do the whole process from end to end. This will help get the right ink restrictions just right for that fabric and then let Caldera build a Linearization from that. Run the Global just to be sure (I usually bring the ink down some more here), then build your ICC. That's it. This workflow works very well for me, following this script, in Caldera, for uncoated, soft textiles. For coated textiles I do the same but use the 150% baseline instead of 250%.

What I'm doing, in effect, is trying to take as much away from the machine as possible and letting the RIP drive. Even if you tried to calibrate with the ink collector on (which I use for almost all textiles, even most airtight textiles), the machine will advise against it.

I usually find 14pass BIDi is perfect, rarely do I use 18p and 10p may work or it may have a little banding.

The slower to run (more passes) the wider the sweet spot to adjust the drying and the curing temps. The idea is to get the tension, the curing, and the vacuum just right. Too much heat can cause the media to shrink excessively and may interfere with registration. I usually turn the fans down some, too, so I do not have fan-related vertical banding.

Hope that helps,

Timothy Mitchell

HP Latex Dept