We found part of your problem, your Fiery is a 1.0, not a 2.1.
So your driver is not correct, I find it odd you have not had much more issues.
You can't simply update the Fiery though, they are technically different hardware, so you have to buy the 1.0 to 2.0, I'm near certain when you buy that they actually bring you to 2.1 now. If it's an external Fiery, it takes it from Windows 7 to Windows 8 and changes the a few hardware bits entirely.
In short, while there are 6 different options to choose from, there is only one right option.
We know from your screenshot you have a 1.0, which takes it down to 2 options.
The EX is the Windows based Fiery, the EX-i is the Linux Fiery that attaches to the back of the printer.
Do yourself a favor though, grab these 2 zip files and take a look through them. A couple of the pdf files probably deal with Command Workstation 4, so it would take a bit to figure out the workflow in Command workstation 5 (and a lot in CWS6), But every single file in it will have benefits to your workflows.
Both of them will eventually disappear (Think days, not years) as they are in my personal dropbox and I have limited storage, so grab them quick.
THANK YOU THANK YOU!
There is so much good information in your post.
we are going to try that on a couple machines to see about bettering consistancy...
quick question though - you mentioned
"Be abslutely certain you have Fiery 2.1"... are you referring to downloading the EX-i C60/C70 Print Driver 2.1 for our machines???
or updating our Webtools to version 2.1??? (we are version 1.0_SP3)
if the former, how do i go about updating that to 2.1??
after checking, we learn that all of us are, except one who was not having color issues... she updates her InDesign and now her color is off as well...
So if Indesign is the problem, it must mean it reverted to the default color handling<Let Indesign determine color>, which outputs RGB, to a CMYK device, which means red becomes magenta, blue becomes purple, gray becomes Blue.
Fix that here by matching this setting
Also, for proper color consistancy, when using PDF files, Acrobat has the same option, and when saving a pdf from Indesign, always use PDF/x <designed for printers>, not regular pdf <designed for digital readers>.
Since import to CWS had the issue, it discounts the driver and the application. Which means the Fiery has bad calibration, since it worked fine from the CWIS method, the printer itself plays no part in the issue and it is fully on the Fiery for the color issue, which is also fairly impossible, because if it works from one Mac it can't be the Fiery or the printer. So somewhere there is missing information, or the Mac that works is in actuality the only one that doesn't.
Never get a print driver for an EFI device from Xerox though, always go to EFI.
And be absolutely certain you have a Fiery 2.1, because they are all different hardware and the drivers do not play well when you get the wrong one. To confirm your version you simply open Webtools and look to the lower left
And as for consistancy, The fiery should be reset and then immediately calibrated for each used stock, at minimum weekly. With an ES1000 or ES2000 if possible, Via Colorcal if not.
And make sure you are actually picking(1) the stock(2) you calibrated in the color settings, otherwise the Fiery will stick with whatever default plain paper it has by default in there.
I apologize in advance for the lengthyness of this post:
We have a Xerox Color C60/C70 with a Fiery box on the back of the machine. It has been a pretty reliable machine, just some minor color issues here and there.
Last week, we called in a tech to help fix a minor color issue on our machine. After 6 hours and taking about 30 steps backwards, we sent him away with a machine in worse condition.
We did some searching and found where to Reset Color Settings to Default in the Command Station and the colors were relatively back to normal. This was Friday afternoon.
Monday morning, we come back and run some test prints and learn that some designers are still off. We created a test file, each of us (10 designers) open the same file and print it from their machine. Of this test print / 6 designers the color was on and 4 were off (we are printing from Adobe InDesign).... I called into tech support again and the guy asked if we were all on the same Adobe software was up to date.... after checking, we learn that all of us are, except one who was not having color issues... she updates her InDesign and now her color is off as well...
Above is a photo of the side by side of the test print…. One on the left is ‘correct’ and one on the right is not…
Of the two images on each of those pages, left is original working document (24.18.18.1 background)… right is (0.0.0.18 background) – other elements on tag are untouched…
Last week – it was suggested to open/import the document (PDF) via Command Station and print to see if it is a driver issue and that printed like the right side (wrong colors)
We also submitted the pdf via the IP address (centreWare) and it printed like the left side (correct colors)
Of the 4 designers that have off colors, their “Driver Job Properties Version” are all the same (2.9.0.009)… of the remaining 6 – all of their Properties Versions varied.
So, we thought maybe that had something to do with the driver version… so, we updated one of the off machines (one of the 4 that were off) to the latest driver
Print Driver for Xerox EX-i C60/C70 Print Server for the Xerox Color C60/C70 Printer v2.1
thinking that was something to do with it and when we reprinted the same file, colors were still wrong…
At this point, we are at a loss…. We’ve had the tech guy come in last Friday…. He did some color correcting on the xerox machine itself, but when he left it was WAY worse than when he started… it was after he left, that we went in and reset to factory all the color settings on the Command Station and got it better.
I feel like there is no point in working on calibrating the machine until all of us designers have consistent colors coming from our computers.
More background, just because I like a paper trail, when we leased the machine from a company out of Fargo, there was a gal there that would come down if we had major problems and help us resolve them… that company has since gone out of business. The service techs we have come in don’t know anything about software and how our programs communicate… they just know how to fix paper jams and override error codes…. That is very frustrating for us.
Thanks for making it through my insanely long post... looking for any and all feedback/advice that could possibly move us in the right direction.
Lana