Re: Relative vs Absolute
Hi Don,
> When reading the webpage that you gave a link to, I see that you:
> 1. Calibrate and profile monitor.
> 2. Don't have to spectrally profile the press to get the press/paper/ink characteristics, but just take a few or several readings to get the important data. This is done instead of doing a press run to get data to build an ICC profile.
Correct, although we use slightly different language.
When you profile the press you're having to completely profile every single color combination (or a set of colors large enough that the color engine can accurately interpolate between them). Not only do you have to print/measure lots of colors, but the profile that this results in contains either XYZ or Lab data. So it's really a color profile. If you are printing more than 4 inks, such as CMYKOG, then you have to print and measure even more patches - the more inks you use, the worse it gets.
What we do is read the spectral data of the paper and inks (which result on the press); this involves only 5 readings (for CMYK), plus another 4 if also setting up for Dot Gain (and another 3 if setting up for ink trapping) - all taking less than 60 seconds or thereabouts. We then take this spectral data and combine this with a physical model of printing to 'profile' the press. So the 'profile' that this results in contains true Spectral data. So we call it a spectral profile (as opposed to your [ICC] color profile).
Doing it this way has the benefit that we don't need to do a press run to get the data to build an ICC profile (we simply read our data from the color bars), and we don't have to read 1000s of patches to create an ICC profile. It's a much faster method that can use inexpensive equipment (such as the Eye-One Pro - no need for the Eye-One IO to automate it).
> I can see that it would save time for someone who didn't have an ICC profile already, or are not using a standard profile. For me, I would calibrate my monitor, set up the press via G7 method (using IDEAlink Curve software), and use the official ICC profile to view my stuff in Adobe programs (or Quark for that matter) to know what I'm getting.
Sure - if you have an ICC profile already for your press, then you've already got that. Only a few standard profiles exist and they are also limited - they only cater for a couple of paper types and inks and typically for CMYK only. If you start using spot colors, then you can't really use a standard profile (any overprints of process with spot colors and you've no idea what you're getting with standard ICC profiles). If you start printing on non-standard paper, or card, or plastic, then again you can't use a standard profile - they don't exist.
Having said that, it's quite possible (in lots of ways) for your PDF proof to not match a plate proof (but that's another long discussion). That's always been the argument for a ROOM based workflow. And with FirstPROOF this is exactly what you are getting - a ROOM based color accurate proof, with in addition powerful tools to check lots of pre-press issues. Any change in screening for example, from AM to FM likely invalidates your ICC profile and means you won't get a match. The beauty of our system is that it works whatever your screening - HPS, Balanced Screening, Stocastic, etc... - with only one set of measurements. You can mix screening in a single job and we'll accurately proof it.
> I guess what I'm saying is that I already have the functionality that this new stuff in FirstProof gives. Maybe not the exact same way, but I get an accurate soft-proof using ICC profiles. Freely available, official profiles.
So you have freely available standard profiles for all your paper, card, plastics, inks, etc..? If you only print CMYK on one or two types of paper, then sure you can do this. Otherwise, not.
In addition, although you see a color accurate soft-proof using ICC profiles, my guess is that you are doing this on the source PDF file. Once you print it, you might get different results. Lots of things can happen, but these depend on what happens once you submit your PDF file for print. As said before, that's another long dicsussion on the issues facing pre-press and press.
> Also, when I proof the same CMYK values to my Sherpa 2 (Relative Colorimetric Intent) and to my Epson (Absolute Colorimetric Intent), although the gamuts and inks are different, there is so little difference in appearance between the two (because both proofers have been calibrated with a spectro), that one would have to have a VERY color critical eye to see the difference. So here again, I have something that works really well and you can't really see a difference between proofs using the different intents. I say this is because (as my Excel calculator confirmed), that:
> U.S. We Coated (SWOP) v2 (Relative Colorimetric Intent to Lab to get NPDCs of unprinted, because we don't print on SWOP paper although our seps come in SWOP)
> GRACoL2006_Coated1v2 (Absolute Colorimetric Intent, to show printed Lab values to plot NPDCs)
> GRACoL2006_Coated1v2 (Relative Colorimetric Intent - because separations are actually done using this intent and not Absolute Colorimetric - and getting Lab values to plot NPDCs)
Now here is exactly where you can use FirstPROOF Pro v5 CM to save you time and money. Since you can RIP your job to produce your plate data (TIFF, PGB, LEN or RAS) and then color accurately view that plate data with FirstPROOF, you don't need to do any hard copy proofing; you make the plate data available to the press guys, so that they too use FirstPROOF on a high-end monitor next to the press and this is what they print to.
It's exactly this that we're getting a lot of interest in. Pre-press use FirstPROOF as they've always done to QA their jobs before printing (checking content, blends, vignettes, screens, moire, inking, traps, seams, bar codes, spot colors, orientation, etc...). This saves them time and money by picking up problems with jobs that they could not catch at the PDF stage. Pre-press also then get to see a color accurate proof using FirstPROOF. When they've finished and release the job, the press guys also use FirstPROOF and get to see exactly the same color accurate proof (that pre-press saw) and this is what they print to. No need whatsoever for a hard copy proof on a slow output device. The more people you have sharing the hard-copy device, the better FirstPROOF gets, as each pre-press person can indepedantly use the power of their own computer to get on with checking and proofing their own jobs.
Regards,
Andy.
Andy Cave,
Chief Executive Officer,
Hamillroad Software Limited.
www.firstproof.com
www.hamillroad.com
Edited by: Andy Cave on Dec 14, 2007 8:33 AM