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I'd like to. But I can't get the big wigs to approve the cost. If we did hire them, upper management will expect the current process to remain as-is, but have the colors corrected through this service. And when they don't alter the procedure to maintain the color management, the money will...

I agree. And if it were my company that's what I'd be likely to do. However, I've brought in four very reputable companies to evaluate our process and give us an estimate on what they'd suggest we do, how long it would take, and what they'd charge. Upper management hasn't approved the expense...

Okay, I made a new post. Hopefully this will answer your questions about how we use our RIP and the ICC profiles.

We use Xante Symphony Flexo RIP 7.0. It has the ability to use ICC profiles, dot gain curves, and hybrid screening. It's basically the only thing we are using for color management. The people who were in charge before I was hired did not do a great job of creating a viable color management...

I think I'm starting to muddy the waters here. I'll start a new post that might make more sense as a focused topic. Thanks though. All good stuff.

Okay, so the RIP does have the ability to assign ICC profiles from the presses into the proofer. But now I have another question. Once again, following FIRST specs... You run your optimization trials... before color management. You eventually figure out the best settings/parameters on the press...

What I mean is, it's worth seeing if the RIP we have can do this. It's old. It lacks some common functions. I can't say off the bat if it is designed to do conversions the way Schnitzel suggests.

That's certainly a direction worth looking into. Thanks.

Okay, so I'm about 95% of the way there on my own. I think I'm just missing one aspect to color management... - Following FIRST specs, we eventually get to the press characterization trials (the stage where you produce the crazy multi-colored test chart). - We print one of these color test...

We currently make water wash flexo plates following an established workflow of exposure and washout times. I am wondering how much of this workflow is accurate, and how much of it is someone's guess that sounded good. The process times we use are as follows... - 2 minutes 15 seconds for back...

I think a lot of people here might be focusing in too much on literally answering your question without getting some context behind it. Why are you converting this in the first place? No one would convert an RGB image to CMYK for shits and giggles. You have to be doing this for a reason that...

Mainly stuff used by our MIS system through Microsoft Access. But then there is an entire company server we can't have access to without a PC. And there are things like workflow diagrams and procedure documents made in a PC only program. Aside from that it starts to become an issue with using...

Currently our Prepress department is Mac based. But besides our three computers, every other computer in the entire company is a PC. This means that our Macs don't have access to certain servers, can't use the MIS system, can't connect to our RIP, and can't use certain files that are common to...

As Joe said, flattening and rasterizing them are not the same thing. If you are asking about flattening them, but you mean you want to rasterize them, basically you'll lose all your spot color data. Everything will be converted to CMYK. How well that works for your color management and printing...

Right now we have three types of digital files for any given job: Proofs, plate files, and 1-bit TIFFs. Everything starts with the plate file. This 1-up image is checked and adjusted for our needs on press. Trap, bleed, minimum color percentages, stroke thickness, holding lines, etc... It all...

These are all flexo plates, right? - Right. From my flexo days, I'd imagine 10% would be REALLY high. - As a gut feeling guess, I'd say we might be around that mark. What is your overall "remake vs. total plates" percentage? - Unfortunately our metrics and statistical data can only be captured...

I think I stated the numbers in a misleading way. We don't have 38% plate remakes. It's that out of all of the remakes that are required, we can see if Prepress is the cause of 38% of them. As far as how many total plates we remake compared to how many total plates we make, I am not sure. Our...

I think I stated the numbers in a misleading way. We don't have 38% plate remakes. It's that out of all of the remakes that are required, we can see if Prepress is the cause of 38% of them. As far as how many total plates we remake compared to how many total plates we make, I am not sure. Our...

As you run through these checks, re-checks, and re-re-checks, do you use sign offs to track who checked what? Or is it just built into the normal workflow that this is the way it's done and everyone follows? Basically, our department is only 3 people, and sometimes our department gets pulled in...

So what did you do to reduce or eliminate human error? Just a good eye for detail? Or was there a workflow change that everyone started to follow to be more accurate and reliable?