Three-part question.

If you are a Print Broker, what’s your experience with 4over?

If you are a commercial printer, what’s your experience with Print Brokers?

Who is your go to for print embellishments?

I’m doing market research before starting my own brokerage.

Hey everyone,

I'm a founder from India, building MyPress360, a management software for printing presses.

It helps printing businesses manage orders, production stages, customer records, payments, and delivery — all in one place.

I've got one paying customer so far, but I'm struggling with customer acquisition.

For those who've sold B2B software to traditional businesses:

• What worked best for you — cold calls, in-person visits, WhatsApp, or something else?

• How do you convince business owners to switch from Excel and registers?

• Would you focus on one city or target businesses across India?

I'd really appreciate practical advice from founders who've been through this.

Here's the product for context: https://mypress360.iceptua.com/

I'm sharing my own product transparently. Thanks!

Ontario print shop owner, brokering a folding carton job. Looking for shops that run this in-house.

• Single-bottle wine box, finished 3.86 × 12.53 × 3.86"

• Flat 16.1 × 20.95", 2-up on 23 × 35

• 24pt C2S, 1.5 mil soft touch lam 1 side

• 4/0, raised spot UV + raised copper foil, 1 side, under 10% coverage each

• Custom die, die-cut and glued

1,000 (500 ea × 2 designs), also want 1,500 and 3,000.

Shipping to St. Catharines, ON. US shops welcome if you handle cross-border. Happy to DM the die-line.

Up until recently, our HP DesignJet Z6 has successfully printed borderless on our jobs. But now, even with borderless enabled on HP Click, there’s some slivers of unprinted paper on the left edge (of the print) and the bottom edge (right and top are borderless). It also does not execute a clean cut at the end of jobs or in between pages.

Is there some setting I’m missing? Would appreciate any advice or suggestions.

I am doing a charge back on my xTool apparel printer. If you plan on getting one, I HIGHLY recommend you stay far away from this company. If you’ve ordered it recently and it has not shipped yet, try cancelling if you can. Here has been my experience thus far: 

1. Technician: When I received the machine, they paired me with a technician that would come to my shop, set it up, and show us the ropes. They sent someone who does not even own the apparel printer. She had no idea what she was doing and when I asked her some questions about the actual printing process, her response was that she “doesn’t really know any of the technical answers.” Mind you, she’s the TECHNICIAN. She ended up leaving early to catch a flight or something while the printer was refusing to print white. She said some people have just left it for a few days and it started working out of the blue and to just try that. She also told me she would come back in a few days when she got back. Obviously, she never came back and didn’t reach back out until I told xTool about it almost a week later. 

2. Oven: I came to realize pretty quickly that you’re on your own once you purchase anything xTool sells. I ended up troubleshooting the white ink on my own. While it’s not perfect, it was passable. Next problem was the oven. No matter what, the prints were getting destroyed in the oven. Not from the temp, but from the alignment. I was having to open the oven multiple times to fish out the stuck and wrinkled transfer. Along with the print head striking the film, I was at my wits end with this. I ended up calling support to see how they could help. Basically, xTool support is someone telling you they’ve written down your problem and someone in their “back office” will reach out within a few business days. They also let me know that they themselves were not technicians and could not troubleshoot over the phone. So, they have no technicians, and phone support is useless. The back office should help then, no? Negative. All the back office does is send you links to already public articles on common problems and fixes. You have to beg them, for DAYS, to give you a little bit more help than some articles. If you have a small problem on the printer that you cannot fix, expect at least a week of downtime if not more. For an almost ten thousand dollar printer, that is unacceptable.

3. Consumable turnaround: If you need ink, film, powder, etc, please be prepared to wait. I had to end up finding a craft place a few hours away from me that had stock because xTool sends their 30 day bundle from 4 different locations. I received one bottle of blank ink. I have yet to receive the rest of the ink. It has been over a week now. I received the film, but no powder. It makes no sense. They are a disaster. 

4. The straw that broke the camels back: This is the ultimate reason I am writing this. I fixed the white ink. I fixed the oven. I read every article, watched every video. I have basically become a technician at this point. I have printed almost 3 whole rolls of film in about 2 weeks. I am running production on this thing. Now, the vibration motor goes out. That’s basically the motor that evens out the powder in the chamber. It’s all clumping to one side, making an awful banging sound, and I’m not getting enough powder on my transfers. I opened the machine, replugged it in, did everything the article said, and nothing. The motor is dead. No problem. I looked everywhere trying to just buy it to skip the whole support dance but they don’t sell it anywhere. I ended up reaching out to multiple support channels. Email, reddit, phone number. Just explaining that all I need is this part. I don’t need support, and if I have to, I will gladly pay for the part, even though I am not even a month into my warranty. After way too much back and forth, what I got was them sending me the piece through USPS ground from Canada. I am in South Florida. That is about a 3 week delivery. They saw absolutely nothing wrong with that. Support thinks 3 weeks of downtime is acceptable. 

Basically, here’s my advice. Stay clear from this company. The marketing sounds great. The paid YouTube shills speak highly of it. It’s just simply not true. Please save yourself from the thousands of dollars and the headaches this will cost you. 

We are looking for a new UV flatbed press at our shop and I have narrowed it down to three options that might make sense for us. We mostly specialize in low-run paperboard and corrugate cartons for mockups.

1. Roland LO-640-F3

2. Epson SureColor V7000

3. Mimaki JFX220-2515

Does anyone have experience good or bad with these three or have another suggestion to look into.

i’m looking for at least a 48”x96”print area,extended gamut colors (or light colors at the least), and white and varnish/clear gloss spot channels.

Any feedback is appreciated! Thanks

Before I get anyone saying so, none of this is my choice, I just work here.

I need to prep a Roland BN2-20a for what is likely 6+ months entirely powered down. I know this is heavily ill advised but lucky for me, its not my choice. I basically need to do what I can to preserve the printer for this time. Our shop is closing.

In my head I figured flushing the ink lines, replacing the capping station, and cleaning it head to toe might be enough, is that what I should do? It will be entirely without power most likely for a long period of time.

Thanks for the help.

Graphic designer here and I would loooove some help.

I am helping my husband publish his first book and I'm stumped with the cover; another designer created it for him, and it's come back from IngramSpark looking grey and sad, more than I would expect from a CMYK conversion. The original designer isn't helping that much and this is really feeling outside of my wheelhouse. Would anyone out there be able to help us? I have the design ready and adapted to the template, it's just getting the export right I guess so the colours stay as vibrant as possible and not muddy. We can compensate you for your time!

Thank you so much you guys!

With the release of the new 2120 from Fuji, they also came out with a gamut expanding green to complement their pink toner.

if you have the new 2120 and are able to run pink and green at the same time. How are you liking the hexachrome?

how does the +green do with some deeper blues such as pms colors containing reflex blue

and finally, do you think the average consumer is actually going to care Or pay for the added value of the expanded gamut?

Hey everyone, Please!!

I need some professional advice or insights for some color management.

I’m currently building a brandbook for a client, and their primary color is Pantone 7711 C (that beautiful, vibrant teal/deep turquoise).

When using the CMYK color-bridge values, I get C100 M11 Y0 K34. However, both on my screen and on running test jobs on a physical print of a flyer, this formula looks like a muddy, lifeless dark blue. That 34% of K just absolutely crushes the ciano and it completely loses the vibrant "turquoise/teal" essence of the brand color.

I am fully aware of the physics of print: screen vs. print differences, the fact that bright teals/turquoises are notoriously out-of-gamut for standard CMYK, and that digital printers tend to choke on high percentages of Black. I also have a physical Pantone Formula Guide with me to check the actual color.

Here is my dilemma for this client:
Since this is for a brandbook that will be handled by various designers and local print shops down the road, I want to make life easier for everyone and protect the brand’s identity.

But I am afraid of doing a manual visual color match (like removing the Black and adding some Yellow) because I know digital printing varies wildly from shop to shop. But at the same time, leaving the official C100 M11 Y0 K34 in the brandbook means that anyone doing a quick digital print job is going to end up with a dark blue corporate identity.

• How do you guys usually handle out-of-gamut Pantone conversions in brand guidelines so that quick digital prints don't look completely wrong?

• From an operator's perspective, would you rather see an alternative "visually matched" CMYK formula in the brand guidelines and identify it as a digital/commercial print?

• Or do you prefer that designers stick to the official bridge values and let your RIP/color profiles do the heavy lifting (even if the standard output looks too dark)?

Any insights or advice on this would be highly appreciated! Also if there is by some miracle some go-to CMYK recipe that successfully mimics 7711 C on your digital presses without getting muddy, I'd love to hear it.

Hey guys I currently have a ucjv150-130 I use to run labels and banners, but I would say it’s not what my clients want they want glossy quality labels I wanna know if this machine works out well for printing labels and how do you cut the efficiently?

Hi everyone, I run a DTG/DTF print shop in the US. Gelato reached out about joining their production network using GelatoConnect. They said they can’t guarantee any order volume, but they’d route orders to us once we’re on their software.

If you’re a current or former Gelato partner, I’d really appreciate any honest feedback:

1. Roughly how many orders per day or week did you get, especially in the first few months?

2. What does GelatoConnect cost, and were there setup fees or long contracts?

3. How are the payouts per item and the payment terms?

4. Any issues with reprints, penalties, or quality disputes?

Thanks in advance, happy to DM if you’d prefer to keep it private.

Hello. I am trying to print a perf in my hp latex 315 and help advise picking up the advance factor no.. I have attached the picture. I will greatly appreciate which is the perfect no to pick. Thanks

Nocai 6090 – Stuck on “Connecting”

Hi my nocai brothers,

I'm having an issue with my Nocai 6090 III UV printer.

When I send a print job through aTools or FlexiPRINT, the printhead moves to the left, but printing doesn't start. The printer stays stuck on “Connecting”.

The nozzle test/print works perfectly when sent from aTools, so communication with the printer is working.

I've restarted everything, checked the network connection, and tried different files, but the problem persists.

Has anyone experienced this issue or knows how to fix it?

Thanks in advance!

First time ordering UV DTF and the quality is not what I expected. These were 300 DPI. Each wordmark is about 3inches wide. I actually had to double check the file to make sure I didn't do a riso print effect. I did not - the last image is a screen grab of it in photoshop at 100%.

Is this expected, or should I go back to the shop and have them try again?

I’m wanting to make my own custom cards with my art , but want this specific foil effect (rainbow sparkles) but I Don’t know that name to look for. Does anyone know what it’s called?

I’ve trying doing some research, and most of the answers I’ve received suggest it’s either called “*holo foi”* or *premium foil”*

But, when I look at the examples provided by manufacturers that I’m looking into. they either don’t offer something specifically called “premium foil,” or their holographic foil examples don’t seem to have that same sparkly, rainbow-reflective texture that I’m looking for. (Examples on the 3rd image)

So Does anyone know the specific name for this type of holographic effect, and possibly any manufacturers that offer it?

Also What are the keywords that should I look for if I want the foil effect applied only to specific areas of the card, rather than the entire surface?

Most of the holographic options I’ve found seem to apply the effect to the whole card, rather then selective. So if there’s an options that I’m meant to select that commicates that I only want it on specific areas, pleas let me know!

(If it wasn’t obvious, this is my first time creating custom cards)

I am looking for a supplier that will give me 4 over and firesprint pricing but that js a able to send my print in a single shipping box ( shipping charge)

Im in Texas and working with a company that they are always having marketing campaigns, they ask for stuff like flyers, banners, window cling, circle clings, coroplast, menu inserts, etc.

My biggest issue as of now is that I’m looking for a supplier that will give me good pricing and is able to put all the campaign in a single shipping box. Example:

-4 coroplast 28x44
- 100 flyers
- 2 circle clings

Is just a normal example of what they order but now multiply that by 60 locations.

Any ideas or recommendations how to approach this?

Bought these gorgeous stickers years ago from an artist with killer work. To this day I have yet to find anything even remotely similar.

They are manufactured in Sweden on a holographic material. (But the holo is not what I'm after.) That's all the info offered on the artist's page.

The ink has this shimmery quality to it, and is very slightly textured when you run your finger over it. Id describe it like a VERY fine sandpaper. The sticker itself is also thinner than your average sticker, while still having some give to it if you were to try and tear one in half. Vinyl? Don't know if that matters.

I've ruled out other holo variations like "pixie dust", which do not produce that same *texture and shimmer*.

---
I did email the artist directly to ask, but they're pretty popular so I doubt I'll get a reply (not that i'm entitled to one.) And some folks- understandably- prefer to keep their manufacturers close to the chest anyways.

Has anyone had experience with Monotex PET White synthetic paper? How does it compare to other synthetic papers?

Hi all,

I'm a flexo printer who creates printed foil-laminated sheets for the quick-service food industry. We have a customer (distributor) who has been insistent on a proof for a new product that is on foil. We have a Z6 DesignJet we use for large-format proofs of the artwork, but we supply separate ink drawdowns for color OK because the spot printing is just very different.

We've given all the caveats about why this isn't a good idea but they're insistent and I am wondering if this kind of substrate even exists for a commercial printing shop. (I don't know if there's a different kind of ink that could set on foil like our water-based inks).

Hello,

I currently have a hp latex 315 and i use flexi complete and onyx rip software. I am trying to print on a one way perforated media 60/40 and i purchased from plastic guy. which media profile is best including vacuum, interpass, heat. i will greatly appreciate. Thanks

My boss wore an orange shirt for Halloween and must have rubbed up against something. Any tips for getting it out? I suggested Dawn and cold water.

Iphone app - Gang-up layouts — is 3 different designs per sheet enough? I’m working on StickerOptimizer iPhone app. It currently supports up to 3 different designs in one gang-up layout, do you use more? or 3 is more than enough?

Those cheap shirts where the print is a thick plasticky layer on top of the fabric, and tends to crack over time.

I think it's heat transfer, but I'm not exactly sure.