Esko AutomationEngine & Plato workflows for Heidelberg Dipco Marks

[chevalier]

I've reached out to support and I've been given ways to make it work but they're far from ideal. I know that there are plenty of you out there with Heidelberg Inpress, Axis, and/or ImageControl. How are you handling the assignment of inks to placeholder colors in marks?

 

[zoran]

We are using Printready workflow and automatic assignment.
I can not remember last time we had to manually assign colour to certain patch.
Since presets are done automatically by Printready, it all works very well.

I remember many years ago when we were using Brisque, we had to manually assign colours to patches in work as well as in InkPro, to make sure they would come out consistently.

 

[chevalier]

No one's responded what a bummer. Just in case somebody else is in a similar situation here are the very ugly ways of manually mapping:

Create an incredibly elaborate workflow that creates static marks on demand (Why would any sane person do this?)
Create an AutomationEngine workflow that reads the inks from your station graphics prior to going into Plato. Use that data to remap the inks of the marks through the Optimize PDF Separations ticket. Place the mark with Plato with "keep original inks". If you've got extra colors you're going to have to deal with them somehow through ticket or go manual when you output put plates and CIP data.

Create Static Marks via AutomationEngine tickets manually
Use AutomationEngine ticket "Optimize PDF Separations". Place the static mark(s) in Plato and keep setting "keep original inks". If you've got extra colors you're going to have to deal with them somehow through ticket or go manual when you output put plates and CIP data.

Create Static Marks via Editor manually
Open the marks up and change the ink colors of via color reassignment, merging swatches, etc. Place the static mark(s) in Plato and keep setting "keep original inks". If you've got extra colors you're going to have to deal with them somehow through ticket or go manual when you output put plates and CIP data.

Convert to objects
Place the mark(s) in Plato and keep setting "keep original inks". Convert the mark to objects. Launch ink mapper and map the inks. You're going to need to consider that if your job has CMYK and you want to use the CMYK elements for other colors (a very weird and unlikely situation) those are going to automatically merge. If you need a contingency use AE "Optimize PDF Separations" or manually remap Cyan to something like C1 or 1C. If you need to adjust this after closing you'll have to delete the mark(s) and start over.

 

[chevalier]

Still_Waiting's post about Dynamic Marks got me thinking - why aren't dynamic marks supported in Plato?