Color Consistency

[NLprintguy]

This is a straight question, just wanting some professional experienced opinions.
Is there any printing press or digital printer that will print the same thing over and over (couple thousand sheets a day) and maintain its color consistency? Has anyone experienced this? Is it totally ridiculous to expect this out of any machine? I really dont know and haven't been around enough different printers/machines.

 

[David Milisock]

This is a straight question, just wanting some professional experienced opinions.
Is there any printing press or digital printer that will print the same thing over and over (couple thousand sheets a day) and maintain its color consistency? Has anyone experienced this? Is it totally ridiculous to expect this out of any machine? I really dont know and haven't been around enough different printers/machines.

A properly maintained press and well trained pressman will give you the best sheet to sheet color throughtout as job.

I've worked with several digital print engines and depending on how critical your eye is your screwed. I've seen work from a NextPress vary throughout the run same with ther IGen, what I mean by that is that the color varied, 5 cases of paper 2 lots, same brand, when you went from one lot to lot the color changed. How do you fixe that in a way that you can make money?

 

[gordo]

This is a straight question, just wanting some professional experienced opinions.
Is there any printing press or digital printer that will print the same thing over and over (couple thousand sheets a day) and maintain its color consistency? Has anyone experienced this? Is it totally ridiculous to expect this out of any machine? I really dont know and haven't been around enough different printers/machines.

No manufacturing process is perfect. There are always variations. The key is to clearly define the target as well as the acceptable deviation as well as the objective method that will be used to measure the deviation.

best, gordon p

 

[RGPW17100]

Indigo is the same. Had a CSR sign off on the color and about 50 sheets into the run it changed. Press checks are kind of a joke as well. Most presses take about 500 sheets for the water and ink to settlle down to get an accurate pull. Even with ink densities exactly the same during the first couple sheets versus say sheet 1000 it can be different. A lot of colors are more forgiving then others. Browns and grays forget it. Same with a lot of the darker blues. Give me PMS 485 on every job and I would be a happy camper

 

[Bloodsaler]

This is a hard question.The perfect state may only exist in the theory.In digital printing and lithography or other printing way,the result color related to the consumbles,the calibration way,and the color conversion.In the real word,the ink pigment vary much,the paper vary much,and the printing condition vary much,also the color conversion can`t be professional all the time.So this results the color consistency is a difficult thing.All we have to do is get closer to each other,but this kind of closer doesn`t mean the same.Even g7 method confirm that can control the gray balance well in each device,but in the application,there also have other factors that will effect the outcome.
So this is why color management should use,but also is why color management is hard to use.

 

[rich apollo]

The short answer is, "no."

Gordo started into the long answer. Variation is inherent in every process. Consider for a moment driving a car. Your speed varies somewhat, as does the direction of travel. Turn on the cruise control - the variation in velocity may lessen, but it is still present; and you've done nothing to keep the vehicle on a straight, and constant trajectory. You, and the cruise control, are constantly making adjustments.

Printing presses are designed to give a repeatable result. That repeatability, however, has a normal variation to it. The trick is to define the normal window of operation. You cannot expect to measure in 1/16's of an inch with a ruler that is marked off in 1/8's of an inch.

Gordo is also correct in stating the importance of defining the "acceptable deviation" (which MUST be within the normal window of operation), the metrics that will be used to measure the deviation, and the method (and structure) in which data will be gathered.

 

[David Milisock]

Indigo is the same. Had a CSR sign off on the color and about 50 sheets into the run it changed. Press checks are kind of a joke as well. Most presses take about 500 sheets for the water and ink to settlle down to get an accurate pull. Even with ink densities exactly the same during the first couple sheets versus say sheet 1000 it can be different. A lot of colors are more forgiving then others. Browns and grays forget it. Same with a lot of the darker blues. Give me PMS 485 on every job and I would be a happy camper

Man do I hear you, the digital devices seem to at maintenance time get calibrated they run for a whie and then need worked on and usually snap back. The problem with color from lot to lot on paper is another issue. As is some of the BS the color management people tell the operators especially before they buy.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

I believe the BS is not the color management people but the sales people who make promises without understanding colour at all.

 

[David Milisock]

It's all around sales and technical staff. You'll almost never here about the inherent color issue with digital devices.

I did some consulting for a flat bed printer a year ago and I got the job when I replied to his question about a profile for his digital Camera RAW work flow. The guy has a $35,000 Phase capture back and lens setup with about another $15,000 in studio equipment and 20 years experience.

I told him that if ayone thought that with my $12,000 worth of equipment I was going to improve over what Phase had to offer it was in my opinion BS. I might spend $2,500 in labor and I might or might not be better but the end result was not going to be worth the cost.

I got $10,000 in consulting on the digital work flow for their cutter and new flatbed.

I appreciate that color management is a work in process and when utilized properly it not only improves color it improves profitability but in 35 years I can tell you I don't see that happening in alot of places.

 

[oxburger]

All of the discussion on color consistency is moot anyway. Most files that are given to a printer are usually not even color corrected. Sure we run a color proof on images that are waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too yellow. The customer o.k.'s it and then o.k.'s the job on press. Color doesn't seem to matter anymore unless you're a major "mall type or catalog" retailer or corporation (i.e. Limited Brands, Macy's, Apple, etc.) Most non-retail print clients seem to be o.k. with crappy color. It's kind of sad. Most want "fast", not "pretty".

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

@oxburger If you go to a library and dig out some old printed matter you see that it's not a new thing. Seems that colour was important for a few years (ie from th 2000's to the 2010) when the vision of quality that can be was replaced by the vision of money that can be saved by not thinking quality

 

[David Milisock]

I agree and the profit margins won't allow much of anything else. Is that how yoy see it too?

 

[David Milisock]

@oxburger If you go to a library and dig out some old printed matter you see that it's not a new thing. Seems that colour was important for a few years (ie from th 2000's to the 2010) when the vision of quality that can be was replaced by the vision of money that can be saved by not thinking quality

The one thing that upsets me the most is that with prudent use of current technology an improved color product will not cost any more to produce then the crap people are now happy with.

 

[trram13]

Job

Job

I have a customer who wants ink standards for his products. They want three blocks of ink side by side. The blocks are 2" wide by 4" long there is 1.25" between each. They want the density to be light (-5) / Density / dark (+5). They want 500 sheets. What do the experts think of these requirements. I am printing on a Heidelberg SM52.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Higher cost with higher quality is a poor assumption

Higher cost with higher quality is a poor assumption

Seems that colour was important for a few years (ie from th 2000's to the 2010) when the vision of quality that can be was replaced by the vision of money that can be saved by not thinking quality

Lukas,

The idea that higher quality costs more is natural but not necessarily true. One of the major points of the Quality Movement was that developing processes that improved quality also reduced cost.

If one is not prepared to rethink one's processes, then the only way to improve quality is with more effort which will cost more. So you are right about the choice between quality and money that you have perceived in this industry but that is the result of this industry's lack of actually commitment to the Quality Movement in a Deming kind of way.

In the statistical Deming view, quality is what the customer wants but the processes are measured by their capability to be predictive and reduce variation to meet the customer's expectation. The Quality Movement thinking is based on improving the capability of the processes.

Their belief is that if the processes are made more capable, then the costs will go down and the capacity will go up. Deming was a great supporter of the development of valid theory to explain the process. With valid theory, simpler methods could be applied that would have improved performance.

Lean thinking on the other hand is more about efficiency. Lots can be accomplished with this way of thinking but when one comes up against the problems in the process, the quality approach, which requires the study of the process in more fundamental ways, is what is needed to break through the existing constraints.

Owners and managers love Lean because they think that they can short cut the path to lower costs without doing the thinking required by the Quality approach. Unfortunately Nature does not let you do that.

I guess I am getting old because I am firmly in the Quality Movement camp. Lean on the other hand seems a bit crude to me since most of the Leaners seem to want improvements without the thinking.

The printing industry is stuck with the technology they have and have to do the best they can with it. Colour consistency is just a process like any other. If the industry settles for automating faulty concepts as the solution to their problems then you will still get problems that need the extra effort to improve their quality.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

@Erik,

Have missed your posts... and yes you are right in saying quality doesn't NEED to cost more but can in fact be a way to keep costs down. Quality and cost need not compete, but they often do... as an example there is a company producing serious hardware machines that puts trainees on doing their technical drawings because they have a lower cost per hour. This is the kind of poor management decisions I am referring to when I say that cost often goes before quality.

I am all for quality, and printing wise it doesn't cost more to print, and definitely not to distribute quality design as opposed to designs looking like they been done by a fifth grader (sorry didn't mean to insult any fifth graders).

 

[Deleted member 16349]

@Erik,

Have missed your posts... and yes you are right in saying quality doesn't NEED to cost more but can in fact be a way to keep costs down. Quality and cost need not compete, but they often do... as an example there is a company producing serious hardware machines that puts trainees on doing their technical drawings because they have a lower cost per hour. This is the kind of poor management decisions I am referring to when I say that cost often goes before quality.

I am all for quality, and printing wise it doesn't cost more to print, and definitely not to distribute quality design as opposed to designs looking like they been done by a fifth grader (sorry didn't mean to insult any fifth graders).

The fifth grade was the happiest three years of my life.

 

[prepressguru]

All of the discussion on color consistency is moot anyway. Most files that are given to a printer are usually not even color corrected. Sure we run a color proof on images that are waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too yellow. The customer o.k.'s it and then o.k.'s the job on press. Color doesn't seem to matter anymore unless you're a major "mall type or catalog" retailer or corporation (i.e. Limited Brands, Macy's, Apple, etc.) Most non-retail print clients seem to be o.k. with crappy color. It's kind of sad. Most want "fast", not "pretty".

Not to mention most files come tagged with the "default" SWOP profiles even when it will run on a sheetfeed press.

p

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

@prepressguru U probably won't be surprised that it's not unusual to find SWOP files even in europe

 

[motormount]

@prepressguru U probably won't be surprised that it's not unusual to find SWOP files even in europe

Why shouldn't,they come default with ps aren't they?

One way to avoid this would be putting some pressure to the torrent uploaders to preconfigure ps color settings before uploading the file,and maybe give a little description like:
cs2 for sheetfeed,cs4 for old web,cs5 for...etc