Apogee X Light

I know you are supposed to produce a prepress proof is to make it match the press sheet. I am well aware of this.

Is it possible to do it the reverse way?

We have an Apogee X light running our avantra imagesetter. How can we get into our RIP to make our films produce to the Epson proofs?
 
Re: Apogee X Light

Ouch. I'm a big fan of unorthodox solutions but this one takes a while to grasp.

I can't help but wonder if your going to try to do this once for a job that you have an approved proof for or if you want this to be SOP. If your talking about proceedure to get proofs to match press, read up on Colortune and use it as prescribed. I'm presuming you a.) already have a signed off proof you are now obligated to match and b.) aren't currently using any other color management scheme.

Given that you may be able to take the Agfa Calibrator software and use the screen values off a proof as the target. So the stimuli is 5%, on the Epson it comes out 8%, that's your target, on the press it comes out 6%. Calibrator will actually create a curve that bumps the separation up. Use that in your transfer in the Hot Ticket setup. It's a far cry from managed color and bass ackwards but should move your separations in the right directions. It'll be a lot of work. You'd have to take the calibrator page that's kicked out and print it on the Epson in each color for the job. CMYK,Spot#1, etc. Measure the results of dot area and make those the "wanted" values. Take the same files, plate them and run them on press. Again, measure those dot areas but put them into Calibrator as the "actual" values. Save them as "Halftone Linked Transfers", Upload them to the ApogeeX server, go into the Transfer Parameters of the Imager TP, I think. Then make a hot ticket that uses them as a default. You may need more details on how to do it but I'm presuming you have a support contract so make Agfa work for it.

If you're blessed to have lots of matching control strips on the proof and the press sheet you may be able to use them to jump into Calibrator and bang in the numbers. Don't be concerned if you don't have the same 20 patches as calibrator. Honestly, it works best if you only put in certain points like 2%, 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and select smooth. A lot of folks don't know that if you leave the "actual" (middle column) fields blank when it generates a curve the software is happy enough and it makes for smoother transfers. Smoother transfers introduce less tonal compression steps.

The bad news is that if the visual difference is caused more by the difference in ink colors than "dot gain", which is likely, this process won't do a whole lot for you. True color management is rocket science. Actually thrust and trajectory calculations may be simpler. Good Luck!!
 
Re: Apogee X Light

This will likely be SOP since this client, which supplies us with files and a signed off Epson, is 95% of our work load.

Can't use hot tickets due to the black type converting to a 4/c grey.

We have no spectrophotometer.

We have no Agfa support contract.

To get close to color on press with decent density numbers we apply PS curves on all images prior to Ripping. Most of the time it is the same curve, so we have a history to go by. With this said I am hoping I can take these curve values and somehow instill them in the Apogee X Light.

By the way what do we NOT have in the light version VS the full Apogee X? (Other than no hi-res zoom preview and no trapping-which we have neither)

Thanks for your help!
 

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