Extended Gamut proofing

Hey all
Just wondering if anyone is using any proofers beyond the usual C-M-Y-K-LC-LM and also which ones give the widest gamut. I know HP has a 12-colour (Light Cyan, Magenta, Light Magenta, Yellow, Red, Green, Blue, Light Grey, Grey, Photo Black, Matte Black, Gloss Enhancer) model now available... are there any others out there? We're looking to replace an Epson 9600 (C-M-Y-K-LC-LM-PhotoK) and we'd like to proof extended-gamut jobs. Any opinions?
Also looking for input on RIPs for such a device... it seems like most RIPs I've seen are based in CMYK printing (that is to say, even PMS or special colours are "dumbed down" into CMYK, even if the proofer attached has a wider gamut than CMYK). Any opinions on this, too?
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

Jeffrey,
In my opinion it is all about Good color management. This starts with the designer and ends with you. If you don't have the gamut, ya can't print it. We use GMG RIP & Epson 10600 with Prinergy in front of that. Our workflow will accomodate the PMS colors and we get close matches. Prinergy on the front end needs to be set correctly as well. I hope this little bit helps.
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

Try the Epson 9880. It has your regular CMYKcmk plus a light light black. The gamut on this this is huge and it prints fast with no banding at all.
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

Maybe a silly question, but why you want to have a extended gamut for your proofing when the CMYK press can't reproduce it? Or you just want to match more spot colors?
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

I never said we are printing on a CMYK press. We are looking at printing Extended Gamut, ie. hexachrome or Opaltone or CMYKrgb, therefore we don't want to be limited by the gamut of our proofing.
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

You may want to check out the EskoArtwork proofing engines Flexproof E and Kaleidoscope colour management. http://www.esko.com/Web/site.aspx?p=290
We can drive a wide range of printer/proofers directly and offer our highly praised colour management tools. Good luck - peter
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

I was talking to one of our vendors yesterday and I asked him to quote us for a new HP machine with the 12 ink system. He said that his distributor told him there were a lot of problems with bronzing and gloss differential (whatever that means). He also mentioned that there was a problem with rips driving such a robust ink system. He suggested to go with the Epson 11880. It prints twice as fast as the 9880 and its about the same price as the HP machines. I have seen the gamut on one of these and its bigger than any of our machines that we have. Good luck with this though.
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

Hi Jeff,

I just spoke to our color swami - if 24 inches is okay, the [Epson 7880|http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/jsp/ProImaging/ProductDetails.do?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&sku=SP7880K3] is the favorite around here - be sure to snag yourself that there [Epson UltraChrome K3™ with Vivid Magenta|http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/...nvMoreInfo=EpsonInvUltraChromeK3VividMagenta]

As for RIPS, he like the [GMG RIP|http://www.gmgcolor.com/gmgcolor/234+M5d637b1e38d.0.html] - because they offer averaging - you can still achieve grey balance and retain 11k of the out of SNAP, GraCol & SWOP gamut colors you seem to be after - of course, if you want the additional 2% you can turn that off.

So, snap a digital picture of [Britney with that Barbie pink wig|http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2007/startracks/070730/britney_spears.jpg] and preserve that color !

- if you are sending it out, be sure to get your PDF/X-3 with full gamut output intent world in order and *you will be fine like [Pantone 25-1-5c|http://www.pantone.com/popups/MYP_mycolormyidea/Details.aspx?id=186] wine* - funny, just does not have the same sound as strawberry)

Edited by: Michael Jahn on Jan 16, 2008 4:30 PM
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

Hi Jeffrey,
Just in a way echoing what folks have said - the gamut is not dependent on the number of colours in your inkset but on the quality of the proofing software, colour management and profiling. DuPont Digital Cromalin (Waterproof) has only CMYK inks but the Cromanet software gets into the far reaches of available gamut and can do specials, PMS etc etc. I'm not pushing DuPont, in fact if you are in packaging probably Kodak's Approval might be the way to go as it has special foils for special colors.

However, in the Epson 9880/7880 you have an excellent proofing machine that can do extended gamut with the right softwtware and a good tech to make the profile (and a bit of time 'coz you're gonna make a shipload of proofs along the way to fine-tune that profile!). GMG ColorProof or Flexproof are great. Oris is pretty good. From a proofing point of view, there is nothing an 8 colour Epson can't do that a 12- colour HP or Canon can do and I've seen it proven. Due to low-metameric inks, Epson is probably still the best for proofing.

It's all about accurately controlling the ink droplets, more so than how may inks there are on the machine. You'l find Hexachrome support in most of the proofing RIPs but I'm not sure about Opaltone, as good as it is. My fading memory says maybe RipIt did a deal with Opaltone and this is now part of Esko???

The answer is there... just persevere and focus on the Proofing Rip/software.
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

Thanks to all who responded... I definitely have some good ideas for my research. I'll let you all know what transpires.
Interesting point, ArtproPro, about the bronzing, because HP addresses this directly in the Z3100 literature, stating as a feature... "Superior gloss uniformity and elimination of bronzing with HP Gloss Enhancer." with the footnote "Bronzing is eliminated as an image-quality issue when HP Gloss Enhancer is used. HP Gloss Enhancer is used on photo paper, with the exception of matte-finish papers." Gloss Enhancer is one of the 12 colours in this unit. I'll ask about this directly if and when we see a demo of this unit. Was your source for this info someone really in the know, or was it an Epson dealer? :)
ASM... I think I know the point you're trying to make, but I have to disagree... the gamut HAS TO BE dependent on the number of colours in your inkset at some level... this is the whole reason these devices have more than 4 colours. I realize the RIP software is key (and this is why I'm looking for RIPs that think beyond CMYK and CMYK versions of special colours), but you cannot claim that a CMYK device can print beyond the CMYK gamut, just because of software.
I'd really like a demo of the GMG RIPs... does anyone know who their dealer is in Canada? I've asked around, but it seems the people who service this industry are particularly slow to respond... including GMG themselves. Maybe they are all recovering from a really, really good holiday...?
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

"...the gamut HAS TO BE dependent on the number of colours in your inkset at some level... this is the whole reason these devices have more than 4 colours. I realize the RIP software is key (and this is why I'm looking for RIPs that think beyond CMYK and CMYK versions of special colours), but you cannot claim that a CMYK device can print beyond the CMYK gamut, just because of software..."

I won't speak for ASM but this issue came up recently in our plant.

The C, M, Y and K inks used on press have a constricted gamut as compared to the same "inks" used in a proofer. This causes most proofers to have a wider gamut, and therefore can represent on-press color fairlly accurately.

This discrepancy is the crux of the debate. Why would one set of CMYK (pigments in this case) be different from another set of CMYK (dyes in this case)?

It gets very deep into chemistry land and the absorbtive/emissive properties of the colorants, but the idea is this. Cyan is just a name we assign to a particular colorant that is somewhere in the same region of the color space our eyes can see, and that we assign the name "cyan" to.

If it were possible in a proofer to get a "magenta" and "yellow" color set that would make the same "red" that the hexachrome presses use, then there would be no need for the "red" cartridge. This, by the way, is possible in some proofers. However, no ink set for press has this capability.

The R, G, B, O, etc. inks for proofers are the best way to duplicate how ink goes on paper right now. At some point in the future it may be possible to eliminate them but I doubt it. (They sell more ink that way!)

My biggest beef with "extra colors" are the "light" versions. LG, LM, LC, etc all exist only to overcome shortcomings in resolution. If a printhead had infinite resolution, it would be pointless to have these colors; simply print less of the "not light" version of the same colorant.

There is a major concern from the press as well. That concern isn't necessarily related to Gamut, but the resolution capability. In a halftone process, tone resolution is not infinite. The number of shades is fixed, and may not align with the proof. Why? It's all about the spaces between the dots on press, and the lack of dots in your proof. Paper simulation is getting better, but any press operator will tell you that halftone proofs are best.

Beautiful proofs are one thing, but don't loose sight of what you're really after: a proof that accurately represents your press output.

-Brian

Edited by: SQCGuy on Jan 17, 2008 8:28 AM
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

So a press printing CMYKrgb or Hexachrome will have a gamut reproducible on a CMYK proofer? Sorry... it sounds doubtful to me, even pigments/dyes/printheads considered.
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

Jeffrey, without sounding like a commercial, have you looked at Absoluteproof and it's relationship with Epson?
So you will know, AbsoluteProof developed, what they call, Extrachrome inks (Orange/Green) a few years ago. The marketing has been more in Europe and Asia but it is now offered here in the USA.
I was very involved with this software for four years and it has grown and improved to a point now where I would highly recommend anyone looking to do "Extended Gamut" prints.
Take a look at this site: http://www.absolute-proof.com
If you get interested contact me.
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

> {quote:title=Rock Lobster wrote:}{quote}
> I never said we are printing on a CMYK press. We are looking at printing Extended Gamut, ie. hexachrome or Opaltone or CMYKrgb, therefore we don't want to be limited by the gamut of our proofing.

Hi Jeffrey

Note that Pantone Hexachrome used Kodak Spotless printing technology to generate the recipes for their Hexachrome swatch book (and Staccato screening to print it). If your main goal is to replace spot colors with process builds you could implement Hexachrome, or Opaltone inksets in an automated prepress process (instead of their manual separation system) using Kodak Spotless technology. You could also choose your own custom inkset if that made more sense. Proofing on inkjet would be dependent on the press gamut achievable with the inkset that you settled on for your presswork. It is not always important to get the widest gamut possible in the inkjet - what's more important is that the gamut cover the gamut of your target presswork - and that depends on the press inkset you choose.

best, gordo
 
Re: Extended Gamut proofing

Hi Jeffrey,
Are you saying my fallacy is wrong? (;-) Marshall McLuhan). Revise your assumption and get a proof made on a digital Cromalin (Waterproof) that has been properly profiled. As someone else has mentioned, CMYK ain't CMYK - all inks have different characteristics. The full gamut of most proofing inksets is way beyond the CMYK litho offset printable gamut and what the proofing software does is REDUCE the gamut to a gamut map that replicates (fingerprints) the target printing press.
CMYK +lC, lM, lK, llK do make the profiling into extended gamut easier - particularly the extra blacks because as anyone who knows UCR will tell you, black is the most important 'color' in 'colors'!!!
There will always be some special colours that are hard to replicate on proofs and this why in the days of chemproofs, there were myriads of special toners/foils or whatever.
We would need 1,000 pages of colour theory to convince you but what I am saying is the software that drives the proofer is more important than the inkset. There are no simple 4-colour CMYK inkjet proofers on the market that I know of - they all have 'extended gamut' the greatest of which is the Canon 12-colour inkset. But try making a 'proof' using its full gamut and then matching it to press and you'll drive the press ops crazy. You can't - because Canon's extra wide gamut is there to make photo-reproductions as close to RGB as possible. I am sure a proof demo by GMG will convince you of this. If you have the widest gamut litho offset press on the planet, you'll never be able to match the full gamut of a dye-based 12-colour, photo market printer, and you probably don't need to anyway.
Check out the IPA proofing shoot-outs, check out www.chromaticity.com and get one of their guys to demo for you.
You'll also find some useful info on www.color.org - the ICC's site. Untill you study gamut maps and see what is truly achievable on proofers with just CMYK and the lC,lM and extra blacks,you'll still be swallowing Canon and HP's photo-market influenced gamut spin that has little to offer offset proofing.
 

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