Are you using Pantone Bridge library?

[zoran]

I am curious what Pantone Library are you using in your Prinect system?
We've been using Pantone Coated and Uncoated for long time and we simulate Uncoated on Epson this way.
Recently our sister shop changed to Pantone Color Bridge Coated and Pantone Solid to Process Coated libraries, instead of Solid coated and Uncoated.

We are concerned that we might not be on the same page any more.

Which library are you using and how does it work for you?

Thanks

 

[michaelejahn]

It is not really which library you use, but more what workflow you are using to simulate Pantones.

I would suggest that ( and I am sure you will agree with) there is a world of difference between using a spot color name and sending some CMYK value.

A good example is a saturated color like like Pantone 151. Passing that Lab value to be converted into the printers available color space (for example, the EPSON 7900) - we can get a very accurate simulation.

If I were sending some CMYK value from Pantone bridge for example, the result is not really in the ball park.

When customers need accurate spot color simulations, we sell the Star Proof and help them with application settings and best of class workflow approaches.

When customers are printing CMYK, we suggest they abandon using Panotne color libraries, as each version and or application often suggests different CMYK values, and often you might have 4 or 5 instances of Pantone 151 on the same page that are different CMYK values - this is typical when you have a pdf that might have been built using Adobe Photoshop artwork with Adobe Illustrator artwork placed in a Quark XPress document.

hope that helps !

 

[John W]

The older book "Solid to Process" guide was a GCR book, that is to say, three color tints were used whenever possible. I argue this is the best way to match spot colors, eg: any violet or blue such as 301 cannot have yellow in its breakdown to CMYK; the old book shows 100C45M0Y18K while the new Color Bridge Coated shows 100C46M5Y18K. IMHO, this is completely bogus. We have a dogeared 2001 solid to process and use it all the time. I'd bet the values are on-line somewhere and I think Illustrator 8 used very similar values too.
We use Serendipity Black Magic for all our proofing needs and created our own LUT for all the PMS colors including simulating metallics on various substrates including recycled board and for the most part, are extremely happy (it took a year between jobs). Because BM is a server based system, we can even poll old plate files from our plate Raid and reproof the jobs (when the sales guy loses his samples!) lol.

 

[chevalier]

zoran,

I'm not sure whether you are using Printready L or Printready P or what Epson proofer you are using...

If you intend to print with a pantone ink use the pantone library that matches:
coated paper, job will utilize pantone ink(s), use coated library this will simulate the ink as closely as possible
uncoated paper, job will utilize pantone ink(s), use uncoated library this will simulate the ink as closely as possible

The purpose of the bridge or solid to process is to convert these pantone inks into CMYK. The Epson proofer you have almost certainly has more inks than just CMYK (if you have X900 series epson you have 9 inks!). The proofer has these extra inks in order to create a wider color gamut to simulate these special inks. If you utilize the bridge or solid to process guide Printready is going to tell MetaDimension (or whatever proofing RIP you are using) to utilize only the CMYK inks when trying to match the spot color.

 

[zoran]

Thanks for replies.
I would agree that sending actual Pantone to proofer produces the best (closest simulation) result and that is how we have it setup with both Pantone Coated and Uncoated libraries.

Chevalier, I am not sure what is P or L as I never heard of it until now.
Our system is 3 boxes (main server, and two metas).
One meta is running Kodak approval and Trendsetter while other meta drives couple of epsons and booklet OKI laser printer.
We have 40" presses and licenses for Signa, Color Toolbox and all the latest bells and whistles.

I wonder why their support tech has changed to this setup?
My next step will be tech support.

Thanks again

 

[chevalier]

Sounds like the person who made the change in settings didn't know what they were doing.

Stated most simply L and P are licensing models that determine how MetaDimension and Printready communicate and how much they communicate. They are sold a different price points as well. P is more basic where each component (Signa, Meta, Printready) more-or-less are stand-alone and L is a very interconnected suite configuration.

 

[prepressguru]

We are using the Pantone Solid to Process in printready. We found the lab only colours in the PMS solid was giving us some strange conversions to CMYK. Where as the solid to process already has the CMYK values. Not sure about the bridge colour library I'll have to see what that is all about now that I see it there.

p