PrintPlanet.com - Color Management http://printplanet.com/forums/ Discussions related color measurement, process control and ICC-based color management for digital imaging and print production. en Sat, 25 May 2013 15:26:33 GMT vBulletin 1 http://printplanet.com/forums/images/misc/rss.png PrintPlanet.com - Color Management http://printplanet.com/forums/ For the love of god http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31271-love-god Sat, 25 May 2013 04:59:02 GMT CAN SOMEONE GIVE ME THE CMYK BREAKDOWN OF 485 HERE IN 2013? All I have is 100m, 91y according to my trusty old 20 year old Pantone spot to CMYK swatch book, yet I have designers telling me 100m, 100y is teh correct conversion! HALP ME!!! CAN SOMEONE GIVE ME THE CMYK BREAKDOWN OF 485 HERE IN 2013?


All I have is 100m, 91y according to my trusty old 20 year old Pantone spot to CMYK swatch book, yet I have designers telling me 100m, 100y is teh correct conversion! HALP ME!!! ]]> Color Management gig0 http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31271-love-god Denistometer V/S Spectrophotometer http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31259-denistometer-v-s-spectrophotometer Thu, 23 May 2013 16:46:51 GMT Hi,

I am not sure that this point was discussed before or not. Which device should be better to the newspaper pressroom: densitomter or spectrophotometer? At present we are scanning gray bar (not black) on the color pages and try to keep the C, M and Y density values within given specification on the presses. We use status T (absolute) on densitometer. It happens that due to different shades of paper: same density may have different L, a and b values. Also spectrophotometer may be useful to check the Delta E between proofs and printed copies and also 'b' value of the paper. It would be great to have some information on which device we should apply and why?

Thanks. ]]> Color Management nilay http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31259-denistometer-v-s-spectrophotometer Curve3 VS. Spot On! - Discrepancy http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31256-curve3-vs-spot-discrepancy Thu, 23 May 2013 14:24:22 GMT Does anyone use Curve2 or Curve3 and use Spot On to verify a calibration once completing a G7 run? Does anyone else get radically different between the two results as far as the Delta E readings? Just curious. Does anyone use Curve2 or Curve3 and use Spot On to verify a calibration once completing a G7 run?

Does anyone else get radically different between the two results as far as the Delta E readings?

Just curious. ]]> Color Management Asures http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31256-curve3-vs-spot-discrepancy Designing with questions about a color critical sheet-fed project http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31250-designing-questions-about-color-critical-sheet-fed-project Tue, 21 May 2013 22:35:21 GMT Hi, I'm a designer, I'd like to get your input on a few points so I can discuss them more intelligently with print companies who will be invited to bid on the job.

The project is color critical and will be done 4/0 on a sheetfed press. No spots.

1) I thought it would make sense to talk to G7 certified printers and have it printed in accordance with that spec. The very first printer I spoke to said "yes, that's us!". But just a few minutes later he asked me what color I wanted the paper to be. This rather surprised me - isn't the nature of the paper spelled out in the spec?

2) The second printer I talked to advised budgeting for a full wet proof and airfare and hotel for press checks during the actual run. Again, surprise. I guess I was under the impression that proofing technology had advanced to the stage where these things were unnecessary uses of time and money. In my mind, even if a project is color critical, once I've signed off on a proof, that is what the printer is going to produce, and the pressman doesn't me standing there looking over his shoulder at 3AM. Thoughts?

3) I'm getting contradictory advice regarding the best way to do my separations. I'm working in InDesign. On the one hand I've been told to use GRACoL2006v2 for color management and let InDesign determine the CMYK values. This produces colors that tend to be spread over all four inks. On the other hand, I've been told that those builds are less stable, and since almost all colors can be built multiple ways in CMYK, I should endeavor to do grey component replacement (GCR), e.g. make the same colors but build them with just one or two colors plus black - i.e. CMK, CYK or MYK, never all four of CMYK if possible. Again, any thoughts or opinions? ]]> Color Management HarveyDunn http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31250-designing-questions-about-color-critical-sheet-fed-project Onyx http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31225-onyx Fri, 17 May 2013 16:50:05 GMT Anyone using Onyx? I saw the interface for the first time yesterday. It looks a lot like EFI. How accurate is color? I need Onyx to handle the large RIP files for our new S70670, but should I consider moving the 7880 from EFI to Onyx? Has anyone had experience running EFI and Onyx on the same print server? Anyone using Onyx?

I saw the interface for the first time yesterday. It looks a lot like EFI.

How accurate is color? I need Onyx to handle the large RIP files for our new S70670, but should I consider moving the 7880 from EFI to Onyx?

Has anyone had experience running EFI and Onyx on the same print server? ]]> Color Management digitalatsigonedotcom http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31225-onyx Calcutate dot gain based upon readings with stochastic screen http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31223-calcutate-dot-gain-based-upon-readings-stochastic-screen Fri, 17 May 2013 13:17:51 GMT Hello everybody,

I've been told that it's impossible to calculate dot gain, based upon readings from printed stochastic screens. Only AM-screens (round, elliptical, ...) should do the trick.

I find that very hard to believe since tint values (and thus dot gain) are calculated using both a blank paper measurement and a 100% measurement. If these two readings are known to the measuremet device, it should be quiet simple to calculate the relative positive of the measured tint since the measured spot (diameter about 4mm) is averaged.

Am I mistaking? And what can be the cause of inaccurate readings for stochastic screens?


Thanks in advance for your feedback.

screenpixie ]]> Color Management screenpixie http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31223-calcutate-dot-gain-based-upon-readings-stochastic-screen Trying new colors http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31220-trying-new-colors Fri, 17 May 2013 10:02:03 GMT I should do a test paint another supplier and to write a report, if there is one formula of some kind, which would have to be written, except for consumer printing inks, drying .. I should do a test paint another supplier and to write a report, if there is one formula of some kind, which would have to be written, except for consumer printing inks, drying .. ]]> Color Management urbis72 http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31220-trying-new-colors G-Seven Calc v2.1 http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31217-g-seven-calc-v2-1-a Fri, 17 May 2013 03:05:18 GMT G-Seven Calc v2.1
by KewlBigDan

THIS SYSTEM IS NOT CERTIFIED BY IDEALLIANCE and will never be. Seriously $7000??

This Excel Document is FREE. You must of course own the Excel (2007/2010) application. I am not sure it works on MACs, other Excel versions or other Excel document emulators.

I have used this software 100's of times for RIP curve calculations, verification, and G7 certifications and it gets us through each time with no problems.

I have to say it is not a polished system, and you have to have your data in a certain format for it to work but if you follow the instructions it should get you very close to where you want to be without spending $2000 for a professional app. Saying that, Purchasing any of the G7 Certified Systems would always be better if you want guaranteed results, but if your on a budget, or work for a cheap company and your tired of Fangraphs...this will work.

The 1 MACRO only imports (copy paste) the data from another excel file (your saved P2P25 data) so if you want to manually do that disable them, it still calculates fine.

My company put me in charge of getting us re-certified G7 Master Printer and I had no clue what G7 entailed. they also didnt want to purchase the Curve2 software and wanted me to just use the Fangraph method for 10 presses, 5 substrates, and mulitple runs. So rather than sit for 4 weeks manually calculating fangraphs for 150 P2P25s, (ok dont roll your eyes, I said I didnt know what I was doing, was just following orders).
So I searched on internet for another solution. There didnt seem to be any application other than the $2000+ applications out there. So I started reading, searching, experimenting. I started in Filemaker Pro, but decided to move to Excel as it works for all the calculations.
I got my hands on the G7 How To 2008.pdf which unlike the G7 How To 2009, Has most of the formulas required to get the results. This problem came translating these formulas into something workable in Excel. As the Formulas deal mostly with LAB, it took another month of searching mathimatical conversion formulas to be able to convrt Densities into *L and back again, and working out the correct NPDC curve data.
First I worked on the brute force method of just inputing the values from the Fangraph and doing a look-up, lots of data entry but after useing this method for testing I stumbled across how to do all the math to dynamically (learning polynomial equations in the process) calculate the curve for any SID. This was a boon as it opened up alot of other factors that then became possible.
So by this stage I could target teh NPDC curve dead on with a simple Correcttred RIP curve but the Grayscale *a *b formulas still evaded me.
So embedded in all the calculations are 5 different calculations by radio button for calculating the Grayscale. I tested each extensively but none really worked correctly. Maybe I was blind or dumb but I could not figure how to have excel find the Gray target off the P2P25 and then calculate the desired grayscale RIP curves.
6 months went by, I gave up. Then one day I was reading some obscure manuscript from a professor to his students about something and it all clicked. (The paper had nothing to do with G7 and was dated in the 70's if I recall, why I was reading it I have no idea, it was one of those moments when i typed some weird thing in the search engine and it popped up). Anyways, I rewrote, which I hate to do, hence the still embedded 5 grayscale calculations, the grayscale calculations with this new understanding and the results were spot on.
Since I wasn't G7 anything by this stage, I still had to use a G7 Expert company to verify and submit all our G7 Master Printer data and I submitted our data for analysts and the results from their Curve2 software matched exactly my results, down to the graphs depictions.
Attached Files
]]> Color Management kewlbigdan http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31217-g-seven-calc-v2-1-a Specifying color using Lab values http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31216-specifying-color-using-lab-values Fri, 17 May 2013 01:04:16 GMT I'd love to hear your thoughts on specifying colors in apps like InDesign using Lab values instead of cmyk for print production.
Good idea? Bad? Concerns? Choice of rendering intents etc. is anyone doing this?

Thx, gordo ]]> Color Management gordo http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31216-specifying-color-using-lab-values Pantone Plus Swatch Book documents http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31214-pantone-plus-swatch-book-documents Thu, 16 May 2013 20:22:03 GMT I've updated the swatch book documents I built several years back. These now contain the Pantone Plus colors. All the colors are spot, defined in Lab. There are no profiles present.

Don't worry if it looks like the colors are not spot in Acrobat. There's a limit of 27 spot colors that can be displayed in the Output Preview window. This is a limitation of Acrobat.

The Solid Coated and Uncoated documents each have 1645 colors. The Pastel & Neon documents each contain 210 colors.

Enjoy.
Attached Files
]]> Color Management rich apollo http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31214-pantone-plus-swatch-book-documents Auto generate CMYK values from Lab? http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31208-auto-generate-cmyk-values-lab Thu, 16 May 2013 00:36:32 GMT Is there a way to automatically generate CMYK screen tint values from a list of (several hundred) L*a*b* values? thx, gordo Is there a way to automatically generate CMYK screen tint values from a list of (several hundred) L*a*b* values?

thx, gordo ]]> Color Management gordo http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31208-auto-generate-cmyk-values-lab Old skool printer - ICC profiles http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31199-old-skool-printer-icc-profiles Wed, 15 May 2013 05:31:09 GMT Right,

I've been using digital printers for a few years and historically only used ICCs at the RIP stage, but am now looking at incorporating ICC into our entire workflow (photoshop, illustrator etc)

Just a couple of things I'm still wondering about;
- If I have a CMYK PDF saved from Illustrator that has an embedded profile of FOGRA39 but within this Illustrator PDF are 2 placed CMYK EPS images (1 with embedded US Web coated SWOP and the other with ISOcoatedsbv2)
- The RIP is set to use Embedded profiles.

Are ALL of the embedded profiles within the document used as they should be? or just the one embedded in the PDF? ]]> Color Management PrintFX http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31199-old-skool-printer-icc-profiles Conflicting Lab Color Values http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31184-conflicting-lab-color-values Mon, 13 May 2013 06:54:32 GMT We are screen printers, and I am trying to set some print standards for our printers. ISO 12647-5

Fogra9 is for screen print, but i can't seem to find a profile to install (SC_GC2_CO_F30), only find the data.
However, Fogra information sheet says Fogra9 is practically identical to offset on gloss art paper (Fogra39?),
so should i forget about Fogra9 and use fogra39?

For Fogra9, why are the Lab values different (Fogra Vs. ISO) when they are both for 12647-5, gamut class 2, especially in Cyan and Yellow? Both are black backing for measurements.

Fogra9s.txt (Screen printing acc. ISO 12642-5, SC_GC2_CO_F30, gamut class 2)
Lab Values
100 Cyan 57.36 -37.40 -49.83
100 Magenta 47.68 73.16 -6.13
100 Yellow 88.28 -4.97 94.76
100 Black 19.14 -0.14 1.44

ISO 12647-5 (gamut class 2)
Lab Values
100 Cyan 52 -33 -51
100 Magenta 47 74 -5
100 Yellow 89 -9 83
100 Black 18 0 0

Once i know which Lab values to aim for, then i'll continue on with a test print on the press to do some measurements of solids and halftones etc..
(At the moment we print by eye, but we will get a densitometer soon to measure halftones properly so we can create better (correct) films and prints etc. with a standard to aim for)

Thanks for your help!
Brett ]]> Color Management Rudstar http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31184-conflicting-lab-color-values CMYK prints the same on every printer!!! http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31166-cmyk-prints-same-every-printer Thu, 09 May 2013 10:12:33 GMT Hello,

OK my first post... I'm running with a couple of Epson Surecolours which I've calibrated myself.

I've been supplied artwork many times with CMYK values stated for certain parts as well as Pantone references. Now I'd normally ignore the CMYK values and match to the Pantone as best I could, but I have a customer who is insistant that I use the CMYK values!

I've told them that this won't guarantee a match to the Pantone but they don't understand why, plus they have said that they have another supplier who is printing the same artwork and mine will need to match.

I explained that the same cmyk makeup will print differently between printers but I don't seem to be getting anywhere!

Have I got completely the wrong idea or should all printers print the same?

Please help! ]]> Color Management PrintFX http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31166-cmyk-prints-same-every-printer Your take on the state of color management (M0, M1, M2, M3, D50 and OBA) http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31155-your-take-state-color-management-m0-m1-m2-m3-d50-oba Tue, 07 May 2013 18:04:43 GMT Exciting news in the color management world lately... New Curve3, new X-rite devices, new(ish) ISO standards! Speaking amongst a few industry contacts it seems that ISO 13655:2009 and ISO 3664:2009 are getting a less than enthusiastic response in field practice.

ISO 13655:2009 (M0, M1, M2, M3 colormetric calculation standards) built upon ISO 3664:2009 (new D50 standards) are upon us. Your thoughts?


I hope that software reporting and quality documentation demands keep pace with this. I can already foresee the nightmares of the various dE formulas replicating themselves through "M-modes" and "which D50" you are adhering to. I've recently experienced some wild things OBA related myself.


Resources (took some searching to dig this up):

ISO 13655:2009
http://www.xrite.com/documents/liter..._Factor_en.pdf
The New ISO Color Measurement Standards - How They Affect Your Business on Vimeo
ISO13655 demystified - KONICA MINOLTA | Europe

ISO 3664:2009
‘New’ graphic arts D50 lighting and viewing conditions | The Missing Horse Consultancy
The Color Management Blog: ISO 3664, a tale of two light bulbs ]]> Color Management chevalier http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31155-your-take-state-color-management-m0-m1-m2-m3-d50-oba Rampage and Epson G7 Proofing http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31151-rampage-epson-g7-proofing Tue, 07 May 2013 14:17:37 GMT Hi, we are installing a new Komori press and reworking our workflow for G7. Our old workflow was "custom" due to the older 2004 Komori and Rampage profiles for color Epson proofing.

We are upgrading to Rampage v12 and purchasing Color Path Sync ( ColorPath Sync | ColorPath (Taskero Universe) | Consultative Services | Graphic Arts & Printing | Fujifilm USA ) for Rampage plate curve management.

We are looking to have G7 Epson proofing that is "easy" to maintain in the sense that to output accurate proofs each week, we do not have to have much extra time investment. We do not have color experts on staff.

So, we have a proposal for Oris color tuner and a new Epson 9900 with built-in Spectrophotometer. The cost for this bundle is not exactly inexpensive. The alternative is to have the vendor's color expert build a Rampage profile and use our current Epson 9800.

Our color proofing workflow right now is Espon 9800 and three profiles in Rampage: gloss, dull and uncoated.

My questions are:

1. Our vendor says that they do not recommend to build three proof options of gloss, dull and uncoated. They are saying that for G7, we should have one proof and train our customers on the difference of paper when printing. What are others doing on this topics?

2. Is Oris Color Tuner the way to go? We can save some cash by not upgrading to the Epson 9900, but we would then need to scan proofs to make sure they are where they need to be for G7- I am not sure PP dept. will do this on all the proofs. Any feedback on this software or alternatives would be great.

Thanks ]]> Color Management markb http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31151-rampage-epson-g7-proofing Color Accurate Web Based Soft Proofing - Good Idea or Bad? http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31136-color-accurate-web-based-soft-proofing-good-idea-bad Fri, 03 May 2013 14:47:04 GMT Hi Everyone,

We are currently looking into replacing our hard-copy proof with color accurate soft proofing to reduce expenses and delivery time.

We've narrowed down our choices to the following three products, however we would like some honest feedback from real users of these softwares.

Kodak Insite
Dialogue ES
Remote Director

Thanks for your help! ]]> Color Management ProperPixel http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31136-color-accurate-web-based-soft-proofing-good-idea-bad Ink desities on press are very low. WHY? http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31083-ink-desities-press-very-low-why Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:04:09 GMT I was not sure if this is the correct sub forum for my question, but here goes. I am a pressman on a Sunday 2000 press with closed loop color capabilities. We print high end, 4 color work 24/7 and continually struggle to print at target densities to match color. As an example, this week the crew ran a job with densities at k-1.50 C-1.05 M-1.0 and Y-.80 average. We are aware that the numbers are to low and ink film thickness in the roller train is very light. In asking management what is going on regarding the dot size and densities, we are told that the image files from the customer is the cause of these discrepancies on press. Other statements are the color gamut G-7 is to wide in comparison to SWOP, and we cannot accommodate certain files from certain suppliers for a color match on press. Here are issues on press I see daily:

The press has been finger printed and ICC profiles are made based on the test, but are not used once there is a color issue on press.

Black ink settings over 1.50 density cause light scumming/tinting in non image areas.

Etch has been changed after fingerprinting the press. No retesting after change

Ink has been changed after fingerprinting the press. No retesting after change

The same ink is used on older Hantcho presses as well as the Sunday presses. Is this a good practice with different water/ink systems. Is the ink formula best suited for each press?




The closed loop color system provides Delta Lab readings as well as others. I don't think anyone has used the tools on press to help better understand and make appropriate changes as needed for better reproduction. What can be done to help move the reproduction process in the correct direction and what order should be first, second and third... Could you please comment on the ink used on press as well as the other points mentioned.

Thanks,

AP ]]> Color Management racerxnet http://printplanet.com/forums/color-management/31083-ink-desities-press-very-low-why