four presses print differently

[donatelo]

Hi I would appreciate if any one would like to share their thoughts on this matter.
Where I work has four presses each of which prints differently, I wanted to know if there is an accepted method of making these press all print pretty much the same outside of applying a curve to the plate? Management wants to be able to take a plate from one press and drop it onto a second and still get the same colour. Can this be done?

[DCurry]

I doubt it - that really is the point of curves on your plate. Even if you had 2 identical presses next to each other you would print differently.

[gordo]

Where I work has four presses each of which prints differently, I wanted to know if there is an accepted method of making these press all print pretty much the same outside of applying a curve to the plate? Management wants to be able to take a plate from one press and drop it onto a second and still get the same colour. Can this be done?

Just how different do they print?
If you are running the same inks to the same (ahem) SIDs then the base hues and over prints should be very similar with the difference being the tone reproduction - normally adjusted with a plate curve. Is it possible to find an average point that the four presses can hit with one plate curve coupled with minor press adjustments?

best, gordon p

[buckeye]

Management never wants much, do they?

[Johu]

As Gordo said, either you have to find some sort of average setting that would suite all and then do some adjustment on press or you do some color management and make all presses look similar but then you would end up creating different plates for all presses.
One thing that might help is to try some sort of ink saving solution in other words doing some advanced GCR/UCR to your files before plate making. This could unify your presses as well... just a thought.

[chevalier]

The only way to do this consistently is to create curves for each press. That said....

If your management is willing to budge a bit and wants an easy ability to move jobs from press to press just BEFORE plates are made you can easily do so with workflow by setting your imposition software to crop output to sheet-size rather than plate-size(press-size) and setting your RIP to lay sheet on platesize. The ability to drop that PDF in any number of hotfolders at RIP for whatever plate-size(press-size) gives your company the ability to rapidly change presses at the last minute without re-working impositions. It is critical that you standardize press marks and settings (minimum gripper, colorbars, targets, etc.) and also generally critical to have some relatively speedy plating equipment if you choose to do this.

[Bloodsaler]

you mentioned that you want to use the curve to balance this kind of difference,so this also means each press has its own curve,if you drop the plate on another press,the curve match may cause more problem.
So if you decide you want to 4 presses print same,the schedule things must be reconsidered~

[David Milisock]

Hi I would appreciate if any one would like to share their thoughts on this matter.
Where I work has four presses each of which prints differently, I wanted to know if there is an accepted method of making these press all print pretty much the same outside of applying a curve to the plate? Management wants to be able to take a plate from one press and drop it onto a second and still get the same colour. Can this be done?

No! Plate curves are individual