Colour bars help please

[mean172]

Hi everyone, I am a minder running an SM52-2, I am having trouble with adding colour bars to any of my jobs, all I keep on telling my boss is to make your own but I don't think he has a clue, all I know is he uses quark xpress and he sends it to our rip which is meta dimension and we run polyester plates, can anyone help as it is starting to get up my goat.............thanks .....

 

[gordo]

You're running jobs without color bars now?
If so why what do you hope to gain by having color bars?

 

[rich apollo]

Are you having trouble convincing him that colorbars would be a good idea, or are you having problems with the actual addition of the colorbars?

 

[mean172]

Hi sorry for the delay the problem I have I want them on there for colour management as I want to do things correctly, the next problem I have is that he does not know how to input them he is well in to his 60s and is not interested in doing things like a pro..... Can anyone help!!!!!!!......

 

[JimBob53]

you can't help someone who will not be helped.

 

[gordo]

[SNIP]he is well in to his 60s and is not interested in doing things like a pro....

Ouch! Ageism rears its ugly head.
I'm well into my 60s and I can tell you that age has nothing to do with your problem or whether your boss is interested in doing things like a pro or not.

 

[dabob]

In my experience . . . "color management" begins in Pre Press . .. if they won't or don't understand what it is or how to do it all color bars would do for you is make sure you run the color consistently . . doesn't make it right - just makes it the same color of wrong . . . good luck

 

[fiatlux]

the next problem I have is that he does not know how to input them he is well in to his 60s and is not interested in doing things like a pro..... Can anyone help!!!!!!!......

You're probably too young to understand the answer.

FL

 

[rich apollo]

Typically, colorbars are added during imposition. If he "doesn't know how" to add colorbars, it's probably because he doesn't want to know. You'll need to convince him that it's a worthwhile endeavor.

If a carpenter showed up to a job site without a tape measure; said he could cut by eye, do you expect that waste would increase or decrease? But, he'd be really productive, right? He wouldn't be wasting all that time measuring stuff.

Get pieces of your ink and paper vendors' letterheads. Write letters to the owner(s) thanking them for not running colorbars - that the extra sales are contributing to a record year. Include a "free" pen.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

If he is using Xpress to impose, then he would need to have an appropriately sized picture box and import the colour bar. It will depend on how much free space there is for the bar and what it will include (take off bars, solids, various tints, secondary and tertiary overprints, gray balance, slur/doubling marks etc). The patches will need to be large enough to be read by a press side densitometer, spectrophotometer or spectrodensitometer.

Gordo’s site has some more info:

The Print Guide: The Color Bar


Stephen Marsh

 

[DaveAcorn]

ColorBar

ColorBar

Color Bar attached for SM74, hope this helps!

 

[wonderings]

He is probably imposing everything manually. So you just need an image to place in that is a colour bar. We use an .ai file that we just place in and scale the image box down depending on the size. It is very simple, just like placing any images in Quark, except this one is outside of the page.

 

[dabob]

If your running nothing but process work using the color bars attached above would work but .. . . if your wanting color bars for spot colors, i.e. 185 and 357 for a two color job it won't help at all . . . you would have to build a different set of bars for each combination. It could be done using other methods but I think that if your boss is that resistant it would be an exercise in futility . . . .

 

[Stephen Marsh]

If your running nothing but process work using the color bars attached above would work but .. . . if your wanting color bars for spot colors, i.e. 185 and 357 for a two color job it won't help at all . . . you would have to build a different set of bars for each combination. It could be done using other methods but I think that if your boss is that resistant it would be an exercise in futility . . . .

I can’t remember how Xpress works after all these years of non-use, however if the colour bars are built as native elements using two spot colours, then one should be able to remap or delete the original colours and nominate which new colours are used to replace the deleted colours.


Stephen Marsh

 

[maas]

To the OP, i would remove your company's name from your profile, just saying.........................

 

[michaelejahn]

...he does not know how to input them he is well in to his 60s and is not interested in doing things like a pro....

I think most of the folks that are answering here are near or over 60.

you can print color bars all day long, but unless you measure them and actually know what to do with that data, you are wasting your time, your directs time. Running an SM52-2 means nothing to me. Contact someone like Ian Reid at at Bodoni Systems Ltd.