Apogee 7 issues

[oldschool]

Has anyone else encountered issues upgrading to 7.0? Our upgrade was completed a couple of months ago and afterward we found that our calibration curve was installed (correctly) but had somehow become corrupt. The numbers were fine but the yellow plates were not being altered. I created a new curve and it has been working fine since. Now we have the color profile being an issue. Certain pms colors are getting hung up and not rendering. We changed our profile to gracol and is working fine.

Apogee 7.1 should be out soon and we are worried what we will be getting ourselves into?

Agfa has been less than responsive with our situation to say the least.

Thanks.

 

[Hamid R. Soleimani]

Forget about Apogee and try Esko Workflow.

No other workflow is as powerful as Esko.

Regarding Dot Gain Compensation, it has IntelliCurve.... the strategy creation...wow, very nice!

 

[GeraldSA]

Good day oldschool.

I find it strange that you say "Agfa has been less than responsive". Where in the world are you? How have you been trying to contact Agfa, or who have you been trying to contact?

You may like to have a look at APOGEEnetwork

G.

 

[Hopkins Printing]

Hi OldSchool,

I have seen this sort of behavior before and as I recall, it happened before our version 7 upgrade. We have upgraded to 7.1 and haven't had any further issues like what you're describing. We do occasionally get a corrupt hot ticket so we delete it and recreate it from scratch and all is well again. Unfortunately, file corruption is sometimes a side effect of using technology ;-)

Hamid, just out of curiosity, have you ever been an Apogee user?

Best regards,
Jon Morgan
Hopkins Printing

 

[oldschool]

Thank you all for the input. We are in Upstate New York USA. I have been in contact with Agfa Tech Support. I have also been in contact with their professional services as we ran a good amount of plates here after the upgrade when we realized the problem. They are standing behind their Limitation of Liability clause more than their product. We signed a 3 year contract, so no go on the Esko.
File corruption is a problem and always will be. We had Agfa do our color profiling, I do not think we should pay for them to come in and do it again.
Just my opinion.

 

[Hopkins Printing]

Hi oldschool,

Did the color profiler provide you with a backup of the profiles? If not, I wonder if the profiler has the profiles saved on his/her computer?

If not, have you done a recent Configuration Manager export that you could restore the profile from that backup?

Best regards,
Jon Morgan
Hopkins Printing

 

[oldschool]

Thank you. Our most recent back up/config export was after the upgrade. I will check previous back ups to see if I can restore the profile.
I am still going to try to have them perform a new one for our troubles.... wish me luck.

 

[rich apollo]

The issues I have seen with version 7, I believe, have to do with memory. A flat will fail to render - the errors cite either insufficient memory or atomic region processing. Restart the computer and the same side that failed will process without issue.

I haven't noticed any problems with file corruption.

 

[oldschool]

The flats that failed to render would still not render even after a restart. We narrowed it down by changing one item at a time. When we plugged in the gracol profile it went right through. Odd it only does it for certain spot colors? I had started rebuilding them named "PMS xxx" instead of the pantone name to idiot proof it for my press personel. With the new profile everything is processing fine. Of course now it is not fingerprinted to my Epson. Maybe 7.1 will help, I am nervous it may lead to more problems.

 

[PrintMedia]

Hi Hamid,

Will ESKO workflow work with AGFA Paladio?

 

[Hopkins Printing]

My guess is that it would but you would need a TIFF catcher in between.

Cheers,
Jon Morgan
Hopkins Printing

 

[Armya Inc]

Has anyone else encountered issues upgrading to 7.0? Our upgrade was completed a couple of months ago and afterward we found that our calibration curve was installed (correctly) but had somehow become corrupt. The numbers were fine but the yellow plates were not being altered. I created a new curve and it has been working fine since. Now we have the color profile being an issue. Certain pms colors are getting hung up and not rendering. We changed our profile to gracol and is working fine.

Apogee 7.1 should be out soon and we are worried what we will be getting ourselves into?

has been less than responsive with our situation to say the least.

Thanks.

Contact:
http://www.apogee.agfa.net/sendEmail1.jsp?type=Email_Site&feedback=1

 

[Armya Inc]

Forget about Apogee and try Esko Workflow.

No other workflow is as powerful as Esko.

Regarding Dot Gain Compensation, it has IntelliCurve.... the strategy creation...wow, very nice!

Hi Hamid,

Hope you are OK. Do you know the cost of Nexus or Flex Rip(Esko Workflows) compare to apogee? They are very expensive work flows compare to Apogee.I do not want to point to any numbers, but roughly 3 times more and Please do not use the word Crack. We can't use Crack Softwares in Canada. It is against the law.

I will send you an email for the Esko Machines.

Keep in touch.

Farshad

 

[Hamid R. Soleimani]

Hi Hamid,

Will ESKO workflow work with AGFA Paladio?

Yes, with PrintDrive and OpenConnect option.

@Farshad
I have never talked about crack in this forum.
The cost of the major workflows (Prinergy - Apogee - Esko - Truflow) are almost similar starting from 15k USD to 200k, depending on the options included.
The companies do now show their fixed pricing, since they always look at customer's budget and the competitions involved.
Esko workflow with major important modules cost around 50k USD, Prinergy and Apogee offer the same options less, something like 40k, although they do not have similar modules as powerful as Esko.
I think that it worth to invest on a more versatile and powerful workflow, as you know we have an expression in Persian, "You'll receive as much soup as you pay!" (har chi pool bedi, hamoon ghadr ash mikhori)!
And finally, in my opinion customers are able to add modules as their business grow.
Cheers,
Hamid

 

[Hopkins Printing]

Hamid, as I understand it, Agfa no longer sells PrintDrive as it is a discontinued product (someone from Agfa correct me if I am wrong here). They have replaced it with a new software called PlateMaker which supports OpenConnect.

As far as Esko having more powerful modules than other workflows, which modules are you referring to?

I am not trying to turn this into another episode of "Which Workflow is Better?" but your original post suggests that the starter of this thread replace his workflow to solve some simple problems ($$$$$$$) which wouldn't be very economical IMHO.

Best regards,
Jon Morgan
Hopkins Printing

 

[Hamid R. Soleimani]

Jon,
You are right in two parts of your post;
- PrintDrive discontinued, but he can install a used one, it will work for the rest of his life!! And it will be so cheap!
- Yes it's not reasonable to change the workflow for one simple problem....

About modules, I have mentioned some of them in this post: http://printplanet.com/forums/fujifilm/27294-workflow-vs-kodak/3#post171842

 

[Armya Inc]

Yes, with PrintDrive and OpenConnect option.

@Farshad
I have never talked about crack in this forum.
The cost of the major workflows (Prinergy - Apogee - Esko - Truflow) are almost similar starting from 15k USD to 200k, depending on the options included.
The companies do now show their fixed pricing, since they always look at customer's budget and the competitions involved.
Esko workflow with major important modules cost around 50k USD, Prinergy and Apogee offer the same options less, something like 40k, although they do not have similar modules as powerful as Esko.
I think that it worth to invest on a more versatile and powerful workflow, as you know we have an expression in Persian, "You'll receive as much soup as you pay!" (har chi pool bedi, hamoon ghadr ash mikhori)!
And finally, in my opinion customers are able to add modules as their business grow.
Cheers,
Hamid

Hamid, I have never mentioned you talked about Crack in this forum. I just made a Disclaimer on my comment. No worries there! The question is what the customer is willing to do with such a powerful software. Not everybody can afford to pay a big money without expecting for return. Coming to pricing I think 50K is a rough estimate for a software. That could be more or less on the options you chose from and it come with the areas which software is being sold. I would like to know your thoughts and experience on comparing Apogee X with Flex Rip. What do you call powerful is Esko softwars, which hasn't been considered in Apogee X. Let me know!

 

[Hamid R. Soleimani]

Hi Farshad,

We will not compare ApogeeX with FlexRip, but Esko Software Suite (Workflow), which includes:
BackStage, PackEdge, Plato, FastImpose, FlexRip, BitmapViewer, IntelliCurve, ScreenManager, ColorTone, Kaleidoscope, FlexoPerfection, and finally Deskpack plugin suite for Illustrator.

FlexRip is only a small part of this huge workflow that does the RIP task coming from tickets of BackStage. We just minimize the FlexRip dispatcher and leave it work in the background!
Even I made a suggestion for Esko developers to have a service which does the task of ripping when a customer buys the software suite.

Regarding ROI, there are some cost reduction points and some management and editing points.

I would like to make a presentation about the powerful points of Esko in comparison to Apogee or Prinergy, and I prefer to post it in another thread related to workflow comparison, like: http://printplanet.com/forums/fujifilm/27294-workflow-vs-kodak/3#

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

@Hamid ApogeeX is also a modular concept and may or may not contain certain components. I think the modular configurations of the different workflow products makes it very hard to compare apples and apples.

 

[Armya Inc]

Hi Farshad,

We will not compare ApogeeX with FlexRip, but Esko Software Suite (Workflow), which includes:
BackStage, PackEdge, Plato, FastImpose, FlexRip, BitmapViewer, IntelliCurve, ScreenManager, ColorTone, Kaleidoscope, FlexoPerfection, and finally Deskpack plugin suite for Illustrator.

FlexRip is only a small part of this huge workflow that does the RIP task coming from tickets of BackStage. We just minimize the FlexRip dispatcher and leave it work in the background!
Even I made a suggestion for Esko developers to have a service which does the task of ripping when a customer buys the software suite.

Regarding ROI, there are some cost reduction points and some management and editing points.

I would like to make a presentation about the powerful points of Esko in comparison to Apogee or Prinergy, and I prefer to post it in another thread related to workflow comparison, like: http://printplanet.com/forums/fujifilm/27294-workflow-vs-kodak/3#

We are looking forward to see your presentation. Another suggestion is to make a video and uploaded it on YOUTUBE and post the Link on this forum.Please also do compare Esko Workflow with Apogee X. Let us know!