Color Calibration for Versant 80

[Pratik]

We are running a shop with 2 Versant 80s with Fiery EX80 and running about 125K prints on each one of them. We have been running both of them for about 30 months now. We tried to define the best process for calibration in terms of when to do it and how to confirm if it was successful by printing a test print every time after calibration but have not been able to make any headway. We use x-rite i1 basic pro for calibration. We dont have color profiler suite and when we met up with a senior efi resource a couple of years ago he recommended that we didnt need it since we dont want to match to any particular color. We print for more than 500 small brands and hence we dont want to create custom profiles for so many client, we are just trying to setup a process where we can get overall consistent color over relatively long periods.

Can anybody help with a SOP or any other documentation on what is the best way to do it without buying any fancy software? I looked up the Fiery Command Workstation manual but it didnt really help. And our engineers are telling us to calibrate once or more in a day whenever we feel visually that the color is going off. I am sure there has to be a better way of doing it.

 

[ColorMonkey]

I think FCPS is a great tool for establishing profiles however given the cost of the software and then the cost of the spectro that is basically what you have but needs to be an EFI issued one (ES-2000), the costs are pretty steep but really that is up to the person purchasing to decide.

I don't run Xerox we are all Ricoh here but I do use FCPS to dial in different paper types and it does work really well. Especially if you are trying to follow standards.

Basically I build profiles for respective stocks and then do to an issue possibly with CWS 5.x, I tend to calibrate those often. I will tell you that again this may be a Ricoh thing but I calibrate for various reason a few or more times throughout the day. I don't know what your process is but it's always good to linearize the machine before doing your calibration and then also keeping an eye on the post calibration results to check D-Max and also quality of screening.

I'm sure someone else will be a lot more use to you that actually runs a Versant but basically just wanted to say I love FCPS and yes, it is not uncommon to calibrate throughout the day. How much just comes down to how hard I'm running the machine, life of parts, and mostly right before I run proofs.

 

[wonderings]

I calibrate before the first colour job I print of the day. I find that calibration is usually good for the whole day, probably even more but I prefer daily calibrations. If it is a new customer and I am adjusting specific colours for them I will start with a fresh calibration and then go from there. Gives me a good base point if there are issues in the future. I basically measure by eye after calibration. So if I am printing a business card first thing in the day, I will calibrate. I then print out a sheet and compare to samples we keep of each job. If it is way out of whack (rarely is) I take it from there and adjust as needed. Our Versant 2100 has been incredibly stable and consistent and it is thankfully not something I have to think about to often.

 

[MailGuru]

We're running (2) Versant 2100's with the Full Width Array and EFI Fiery Hyper-RIPs, so, ours is pretty much automatic and stays consistent. Still, out of habit from back when we had older machines, we do calibrate every morning, first thing in the morning. Color stays steadfast all day long, as well as day to day color matching from previous jobs.

 

[mojoprime]

+1 to the folks above. we have a v80 and we calibrate at least once a week, usually once a day and always after changing drums and more than one toner. we have more consistent color than some print shops around town and we're an in-house shop.

 

[Pratik]

Thank you guys. Our engineers have told us that it is better for the ACs to reach the optimal temperature and for the machine to run a few prints before doing a calibration. So currently we run a couple of non critical short jobs every day and say after 15 odd minutes of the machine running we then do the calibration. It has worked for us so far but just wanted to know if there was better.