Roland Not Printing Red? How to Color Correct Orangey-Red for Roland BN2 and BN-20A

If you're struggling to get your Roland BN2-20A or other Roland CYMK printer to print red you're not alone. 

Printing red ink on Roland BN or BN2 often comes with an orange tone.  This is not an issue with the ink. While it's incredibly frustrating if you're trying to print and match brand or team colors, with a few settings adjustments you can get true red. 

Read on to learn how I finally got my reds to print true red rather than reddish-orange with Versaworks 7 and my Roland BN2-20A. 

Now that Roland Versaworks 7 is compatible with Mac (which FlexiDesigner for Versaworks 7 is not compatible with) my workflow for adding Roland BN2 cut lines is: open file in Affinity Designer to add cut lines > export as PDF > Upload to Versaworks.

Affinity is where the color issue started. Affinity was exporting the file with RGB so Versawork then has to convert them to CMYK. That conversion was contributing to the color shifting from true red to orange red. 

Without a side by side it's not real obvious but look how close the red in the megaphone is with the orange in the basketball, but here's a look at my design in Affinity Designer. 

So what's the fix? 

Affinity Designer Document Set Up for True Red Printing

Turns out default document color settings in Affinity are a big reason for poor red quality prints. 

So we need to up the document in Affinity correctly for CMYK. 

Go to File > Document Setup. 

Click the Color tab and change the Color Format from "RGB/8" to "CMYK/8".

Make sure the CMYK Color profile called "U.S. Web Coated SWOP v2" is selected in the dropdown.  

Right below that you have the option for Convert or Assign. They may both be grayed out. If they are, click "Ok" then go back into that Color tab and confirm "Convert" is selected.

Now verify your colors! Your color picker will show C, M, Y, K percentages instead of RGB values. True red should be approximately 0% Cyan, 100% Magenta, 100% Yellow, 0% Black.

You can do this step right before exporting or when you first set up your document. It doesn't matter.

Export from Affinity Designer

When you're ready to export the file from Affinity Designer as a PDF for VersaWorks go to File > Export.

Select PDF format and choose "PDF (for print)" preset.

Click "More" to access the advanced options and make sure "Embed Profile" is NOT checked. This prevents conflicting color management between Affinity Designer and VersaWorks.

Move forward with exporting the PDF file.

Roland VersaWorks 7 Color Settings

Import your PDF into VersaWorks 7 like normal.

Select the file in the queue and right click to go to Edit Design > Settings. 

Go to the Color Management tab and make these three setting changes: 

1. Set your Preset to "True Rich Color 3" 

2. Check the box for "Preserve Primary Colors". This tells VersaWorks not to mess with your pure CMYK colors! When you check this box VersaWorks' color management system won't adjust your pure CMYK colors. It keeps your reds exactly as you specified them. It will probably also switch the preset to "Custom"

3. And make sure you keep the box for "Use Embedded ICC Profile" unchecked since you deliberately didn't embed one in the PDF export. This eliminates conflicts between different color management systems trying to interpret the same colors. 

Side by Side Print Test with Roland BN2

The photos don't do my before and after prints justice, but the color difference is dramatic with these changes. I went from having a heat transfer that was totally off brand colors to being spot on. 

The right is the original orangey-red print and the left is with the correct color settings.

I should also point out - red was not the only color in this image I was struggling with - the blues were not deep enough and too purply. These color setting changes fixed that issue too!  

You can also save some of these default settings in Affinity Designer but the Document Setup does default to RGB so that would need to be changed each time before you export as a PDF.

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