Colour variance in PDF

[bradc]

Hi,

I have a PDF that we are printing to a 700 xerox fuji, when we print it from a MAc, and then from a pc, we are getting colour variance, when we impo the file on the pc, we are getitng the same result as whats comign out of the mac, all % in the pdf are reading the same.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Brad

 

[Al Ferrari]

What application and versions are you using to print from on each platform?

I can tell you from actual experience, that on an iMac with 10.5.8, Acrobat 8 and 9 print very different color using paper from the same roll, the same custom icc profile and print settings.

If the "impoed" the file is being being printed by the "impo" application on the PC, that may be doing the color management on that platform.

Al Ferrari

 

[bradc]

The PDF is supplied, when we print from the PC 1 up, its prints differently to when we impose it 2 up in snake which is a plugin for acrobat. I am doing a few more test now as well

 

[Al Ferrari]

So when Sake is involved, the color is different, eh? But what are you printing from on the mac?

Edit: I see that you have a duplicate thread with the same title. You should go to the other one and delete it. The way the forum software works, only you can do that.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

Possibly one is colour managing the other is not, or they use different colour manegement settings.
Are pure colours pure (uncontaminated?)?
Does the PDF have an output intent? Are colour manegement settings the same on both machines.
Are the colours "device cmyk" or ICC tagged? Are the PDF reader/Acrobat same version?

My guess is that mac is older PDF reader, and prints without colour management, and that you are loosing colour rendering intent when you impose therefore Mac and imposed results are unmaneged CMYK and therefore same colours. The PC has a newer PDF reader and is colour managing (intentionally or unintentionally).

 

[killer1loop]

The PDF is supplied, when we print from the PC 1 up, its prints differently to when we impose it 2 up in snake which is a plugin for acrobat. I am doing a few more test now as well

Problem is in Distiller preferences and job properties. Check if you are using an Acrobat distiller profile which makes some kind of color management on you PDF. Whenever you make an imposition, Distiller is triggered using Fiery customized job options. Also check resolution and font management, as EFI defaults are not so... "fail proof"

 

[michaelejahn]

@ Brad - PDF Snake may be stripping out your color profiles, but It has been a while since I used it, so that is a wild guess - to check that, simply use PitStop to check the before and after.

BUT, having said that - it seems far more likely that it may be that the printer drivers or the PPD's are set up differently - and that would explain why the same PDF - when printed - is different at output.

@ Killer1loop - In this case, i believe that the imposition is Distiller 'free' - that is, if they are using the PDF Snake Acrobat Plug-in, they are not sending the PDF through Distiller, but using a PDF Library to parce then re-assemble the PDF.

Hope that helps - and good luck !

 

[kseldridge1]

Are you printing from Acrobat? Is it an rgb pdf? (Acrobat Sep preview will give you numbers for the profile selected. You can have a rgb file set to preview in SWOP and the number readings will be in cmyk.) The default for pc will be sRGB and default for mac will be Adobe RGB 1998. It sounds like either one is picking up an embedded profile or the color management settings are different on each platform.

 

[UberTech]

Import the file into cws. This will bypass the colourflow of the app and driver, Which ever does not match this output is the machine with the issue.