topic Re: Plotmaker won't print grey in Documentation

Plotmaker won't print grey

Paul King — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 14:51:52 GMT

Hi - for some reason, a certain tone of grey , that appears as grey on screen in Plotmaker always prints as a very heavily dithered blue

I have confirmed that this is not a pen mapping issue.

I cannot switch to greyscale printing, as need to show areas deliberately coloured blue on same sheet as areas that should appear light grey.

THis is a phenomenon I have observed on several different ArchiCAD versions and with several different plotters/printers in different offices

Something to do with colour mixing algorithm/rendering of grey by printer I presume - but how is it controlled? until I reinstalled windows yesterday I was not having this problem - but as as far as I know, I am using same printer driver & settings now as I was two days ago!

Any ideas most appreciated!

Re: Plotmaker won't print grey

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 17:32:56 GMT

I can't offer much help, but it does sound like a printer issue. Most color printers try to expand their range of greys by using color inks. This can lead to some rather unattractive results. You might try shifting the grey slightly to see if the printer changes how it renders the tone.

Re: Plotmaker won't print grey

Paul King — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 20:32:42 GMT

Hi Matthew

You were right - it was a printer issue. Specifically, it was the way the dithering was being done - I found by increasing the quality settings, the problem went away (though printing was of course slower)

Cheers

Re: Plotmaker won't print grey

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 23:30:55 GMT

Architectural renderings can be some of the most challenging images to print well. Since we tend to have a lot of light gradients we are relying putting small amounts of ink on a lot of white paper. This is the area where the color gamut of the printers is most spotty. The printers with light versions of the standard colors seem to do the best job. This is one of many reasons that I don't do too much "photo-realistic" rendering.