First time profiling HP Indigo 4500

[SPFSkyline]

I just started in this world of prepress with a label company printing on a HP Indigo 4500. Color management has been impossible because the color strategy is as old as the press, been thru multiple HP "upgrades" and was originally created to mimic the flexo jobs they had been running. This resulted in a simulated dot gain curve of .75 being added too all RIPed jobs. I am learning all this on the fly and trying to build a new color strategy.

Tools:
Esko Color Engine Pilot 13 / X-rite i1iO with i1pro v1

I have printed the charts and had the spectro scan them via Color Engine. I have the profile review up looking for outlier blocks. There are some obvious issues, you select the block, are promoted to locate and place the i1 over the color sample to read again. It does so and sometimes the color seems to fit in to the surrounding samples well. Sometimes, it reads and replaces with a color that is worse than before rescanning. You can scan the surrounding color blocks and they all seem to change reading.

It makes me wonder if the i1 is properly reading the charts? Am I being picky?

Thanks for helping a newbie

 

[rich apollo]

I haven't worked with Esko Color Engine Pilot, so I can't give you any specific information about that program.

Variability in color measurement is a fact of life. The instruments have a certain tolerance for repeatability - they aren't perfect. The i1 also has the consideration of the position of the device. Tiny changes in the attitude of the device cause changes in measurements. The iO tables have a tendency over time to not hold the i1 securely.

Are you being too picky? Can't really say. We would need to see the data. Measure your charts two or three times and average those measurements together. That will smooth your data. Also, make sure your iO table is holding the i1 snugly. Setting the iO to read in patch mode will yield more consistent results, but it takes much longer.

 

[SPFSkyline]

Thanks for the help! I will look into more and try to get a better understanding of how HP and Color Engine work together.

 

[Correct Color]

Personally, I hate the i1iO. Every time I have ever tested it, I've been pretty aghast at the results.

If you're serious, just pull the i1 out of it, and manually read your patches. You'll get a much better result.


Mike Adams

 

[SPFSkyline]

Thank you! I may just commit a few hours to do this on our main substrate and test it out.

 

[Dov]

Hi SPFSkyline ,

I am trying to guessing what you mean in your text, which is not easy because it seems you name all
things and process steps in color engine and in the Indigo 4500 with your own names.
Regardingless that I would like to give you some useful tips.
If you are just starting, like you stated in your post you might prefer to start in an other place.
Let me put it in other words : you are trying to build a piramid starting at the top. (I am sorry it won't work)

What I suggest you to do is :
make sure your substrates in the press are properly defined (glossy, semimatt, matt)
make sure that your inks are properly calibrated
get a x-rite 500 series (504 is my favorite)
check that yout ILD is preforming properly
with cosumables just rolled in (a few K clicks)
delete all your color history (LUTs)
generate a new machine LUT (linearisation)
print a simple test job (with as many dot area patches as possible 5% 10% 15% 20% ......) check them
this way you will get a picture of how your press is preforming and in case something goes wrong you can allways get back to thatt based line state.

If you mastered al this then you can start with profiling ans esko and strategies ....and so on.

if you have any questions please feel free to ask
here or private message.

hope it helps

 

[SPFSkyline]

Thanks for the advice.

I got with one of the press operators and ops manager and they helped me understood all this better. Press is in good working order and we have an X-Rite eXact. We clear the color history and generate a new LUT every time we switch substrates. We have a sample job to print and check dot area patches that they will do for me ASAP. The only question they had was how to verify the ILD was working properly? As far as they know it is working fine.

 

[Dov]

Hi ,
in order to verify if the ILD is working correctly I suggest you once in two weeks to print a simple color adjustment.
At the end of the adjustment you will receive a table with the outcomes of the meassurments.
Then you take you X-rite (which you should set to meassure in G-mode) and meassure the patches on the last page printed.
(only the solids). If the outcome of the ILD on the press are the same or close enough to the ones meassured externaly
you are in tolerance and good to go. If not , then full calibrate your ILD.

hope it helps