Curve Organization Methods

[Red_Right_Arm]

So if you have one press, one substrate, one ink, one plate material, and two anilox rolls you have two compensation curves to make. If you then add another substrate you have four curves to make. If you then add another ink type, you now have eight curves to make. If you add another press, you have 16 curves to make... and so on, and so on, and so on.

My company currently has 7 presses, two ink types, at least three anilox rolls per press (likely more), and at least five substrates (likely more). So we have something in the neighborhood of at least 210 different curves to make for every possible combination.

Then you get into one curve for each process color and that becomes 840 curves. Start adding spot colors and it grows even more.

This seems overblown and unmanageable. But if this many need to be done, then this many need to be done.

I'm wondering if anyone else has come into the same conundrum? And if so, how did they make this more manageable?

Or, if they did have to make this many or more curves, how they were able to keep them organized? I'm trying to think of a file naming convention that illustrates each bit of criteria that pertains to the curve, but the filenames end up being short novels. Does anyone have any insight they can share on this daunting task?

 

[arossetti]

Well different world but similar problem. I work in a digital grand format shop - just on the UV inkjet side we have 6 printers, some 200 substrates. We just do it and maintain it. We have a full time person dedicated to managing the process.

You could test different combinations with a single curve and see if your results are within your tolerance and if so cut down on the number of curves.

 

[Red_Right_Arm]

Well different world but similar problem. I work in a digital grand format shop - just on the UV inkjet side we have 6 printers, some 200 substrates. We just do it and maintain it. We have a full time person dedicated to managing the process.

You could test different combinations with a single curve and see if your results are within your tolerance and if so cut down on the number of curves.

That's most likely what we will need to do. Just roll with it. And I'm running around talking with various department heads to try and figure out which variables we can cut out for now. But we are still going to need to manage the multiple curves, however many there are. Do you have any experience with file naming conventions to keep things straight when you look at the filename?

 

[ederoos]

I use the below naming convention for all our curves, offset or digital. FYI: I manage 4 prepress departments within 4 manufacturing sites spread across 3 states.

Facility_Device_Substrate_Date

Adding the date helps me remember when the curve was created in case needed to help diagnose a match issue, etc. We generally stick to one LPI and inkset per substrate/press so it's left out of the curve description.

 

[Red_Right_Arm]

I use the below naming convention for all our curves, offset or digital. FYI: I manage 4 prepress departments within 4 manufacturing sites spread across 3 states.

Facility_Device_Substrate_Date

Adding the date helps me remember when the curve was created in case needed to help diagnose a match issue, etc. We generally stick to one LPI and inkset per substrate/press so it's left out of the curve description.

Thanks. What about anilox variables?

 

[ederoos]

Most of our presses don't use anilox rollers. The ones that do only have the one roller thats used for all coating so that's not a variable we use for developing curve sets.

 

[bquarks]

Red_Right_Arm Are you using Esko softwares? With Automation Engine and Color Engine it "easy" manage all this curves...

 

[shorty83]

I currently have a total of 12 different curves for 4 different presses. We do not have separate curves for different aniloxes. We only fingerprint based on press, ink + substrate. We combine similar materials into one curve. Never had an issue doing it this way.