Predictability and consistency are two sides of the same coin--the somewhat less stable output of this type of press. There is both short-cycle and longer-cycle color drift. Other than machine maintenance there is little you can do about the former; consider it the noise floor of the system...
Because you mention Color Pilot I assume that your presses are the roll-fed models. Setting aside the matter of spot colors, which are converted in a different path from RGB, gray, or CMYK objects, my observation is that most users employ a workflow similar to yours. The Indigo's primaries and...
Sorry for the long delay in responding. Hello Mike Jahn(!) and thanks, Widmark, for correcting the info on PrintFactory. I've since been in touch with them on an unrelated matter and have gotten updated on their current organization.
As for your original device link question you did ask...
Somehow the screen froze and the rest of my reply got dumped. Device links may need to be soft-proofed if they contain modifications that are intended to change the appearance of the image or other file that is not present in either its source or destination profiles. Adobe apps cannot softproof...
Hello Sornchai,
Color servers are essentially standalone applications for converting documents, mostly but not exclusively PDFs, to a target or destination color space to optimize a color match or printability. They are related to color conversion engines in color-managed applications such as...
I will defer to printers' stated needs to save ink or promote faster drying: Many factors contribute to such conclusions and will vary with printing method and ink costs. Juts to give two examples, newspaper printing on a coldest press and flexo printing on poly bags with UV-curing inks are so...
I am having trouble understanding Ergo's account. This statement is one of several I find puzzling: "I calculated Alwan’s ink savings for a year. There was no significant amount, but the price of the software and upgrades paid off." So did the software pay for itself in some other way?
Pretty much every profiling application allows you to impose a total ink limit/area coverage ("TAC") setting for the profile. But also keep in mind that you will need a device link profile to manage exceptions to the separation. In this case you can either build the lower TAC setting into the...
An output intent is equivalent to and references an ICC profile. It applies to the document itself, which includes any content native to it. For example, if you design a layout in Illustrator, this would include the objects you created as part of that design, as well as any that were pasted into...
PressSIGN Pro and Techkon Spectrodrive
PressSIGN Pro and Techkon Spectrodrive
PressSIGN Pro driving the Spectrodrive is a potent combination. To answer your question, both the Spectrodrive and the X-Rite Intellitrax get the job done very well, and both are driven directly by PressSIGN. The...
Chevalier, I'm confused by the post. First you talk about simulating spot colors in proofs and then you discuss the gamut of digital presses. Which question do you want addressed?
As for iterating spot colors in a proof, the problem is that while this may be fine for setting up the system, but...
As Gordo says, there is no important question regarding DLs per se as they are required for any CMYK-CMYK conversion, typically to repurpose a file for a different print condition (e.g., HQ sheetfed to coldset web) or to impart higher GCR for a bit of ink savings and gray balance stability...
GRACoL Proofer Upgrade
GRACoL Proofer Upgrade
GMG upgrades are quite costly. I would suggest EFI Fiery XF (no, it has nothing to do with Fiery controllers), a bundle version of Colorproof XF and functionally identical for proofing. It will easily exceed your requirements, including spot color...
We really don't have enough information to advise, but in general these problems derive from the lack of a
proper proof and/or proper controls on press. A good proof closely resembles output on the target press and paper. If you are making such a proof (and this is not assumed) the problem is...
Mr. Apollo is correct. Or to put it differently, if your paper is far from GRACoL spec in color all your colors will be skewed in that direction in proportion to their transparency. If your paper measures -7 for b* your jobs will never pass GRACoL specs no matter what you do. If you have to...
Pro Photo RGB was designed by Kodak as an archiving space for scans of Ektachrome transparencies without any clipping of colors. Is is indeed a huge space. But for that reason it makes a poor editing space. Tiny moves in curves result in very large color shifts, so it's hard to work with much...
If the profiles are different the CMYK numbers should not be the same after conversion from RGB, and the result should also look different onscreen, if you have turned on "proof colors" and have the profiles loaded in Proof Setup, preferably with paper white simulation turned on. But try another...
Making a custom press profile of any utility is not a trivial exercise; it requires averaging many press runs and "smoothing" the numbers to suppress anomalous data, make the profile more generally useful, etc. This is exactly what what was done to create "standard" profiles such as GRACoL, and...
Dot Gain
Dot Gain
I know this is obvious to many here, but it's worth pointing out to some: When you are judging dot gain as normal, high, or low, be sure that no plate curves have been applied. Measured "dot gain" is the sum of your press gain and whatever curves have been applied. Your...
The Video You Really Need To Watch
Modern offset press performance comes with several nuances.
Chris Travis, Director of Technology at Koenig & Bauer, shares some details.
View The Video