Gracol 2013 incredibly washed out

[Cameron]

I am sure we are doing something wrong. But we are getting very washed out results attempting to convert our files to Gracol 2013 in acrobat (when printed)
Our goal is to ink limit incoming files from customers at 280%. So we have been trying 'convert color' in acrobat to convert to gracol 2013 in acrobat which limits the ink as needed. If we turn on simulate paper color with the output profile set to 2013, everything is washed out.. and it prints as such on different machines (digital, wf latex, etc).. If we then preflight and convert to 2006 gracol, and output on those machines as 2006 gracol, the ink is still limited, but does not print as washed out.
This doesnt seem like it should be the way that behaves.. looking for any input at all..
In the end our main goal is really just to print to an industry standard, but have the ink limited ahead of time so that it can be previewed and shared with the client in the proofing stage.
Any help would be really appreciated thanks!

 

[Magnus]

Hi Cameron,

In a color managed workflow, no one should be able to see a visual difference between different TAC's (280% - 330%). TAC is only used to limit the total amount of ink for a specific combination of paper and print machine. Different TAC's should (in a normal case) not be visible in softproof, hard proof or final print, if it's done right. (Minor differences in darkest part of images can occur, but they should be really minor).

I understand your approach of "normalizing" the files to a standard CMYK before proofing or soft proofing.

Could you provide 3 example files? (Original PDF, Gracol 2013 conversion, and Gracol 2006 conversion). That would give me a better chance of helping you out.