The Brightness and Contrast controls here have same effect on the printed image as do similar controls on typical office color printers. Click Reset to restore default conditions.

Printing Preferences

K (Black) Panel

When the Card Setup screen (page TN8-1) is set for YMC (Color) and K (Black) on the same side of a card, a process called “Black Extraction” is enabled (see inset panel, right). The K (Black) Panel screen, below, displays available options for Black Extraction.

Before you make any modifications to the K (Black) Panel display take a few minutes to understand what Black Extraction does. Although quite subtle in concept it can have a dramatic effect on image quality and machine readability.

What is black extraction?

Black extraction has to do with the way the printer driver handles the K (black) panel. It applies only to surfaces of the card on which both YMC (color) and K (black) are to be printed.

BrightnessContrast 0 50

ContrastBrightness2550

 

ContrastBrightness5050

 

 

 

ContrastBrightness5025

 

ContrastBrightness5075

 

 

 

ContrastBrightness10050

 

ContrastBrightness7550

 

 

 

Equal amounts of Y, M and C dyes, at maximum intensity, deliver a near-black image, but one which is not machine readable. For example, a bar code printed from YMC (color) will be visible to the eye, but will not be detectable by most bar code readers. The remedy for this is to “extract the black”; in other words to print the same bar code, using the K (black) panel, on top of the YMC bar code. (You can also choose to print only in K, omitting YMC from that region.) The K (black) panel is not a dye. It is more of a paint containing carbon black, which is highly visible to infrared-type readers.

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P640i Card Printer User Guide

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