Ink save, bogus and not.
Ink save, bogus and not.
What can I expect? How do I do a real world test? Can I narrow my choices down to 4-5 well known vendors? Do they all use GCR? How do I integrate with my (Artworks) workflow?
I have info on GMG, Oris, Alwan, ICEserver, Agfa.
All help is appreciated. Thank you.
First: I am not objective. If you want you can stop reading here*. You manager missed one vendor... They guilty one.
Anyway. I will still try to answer as objectively as I can. Hope that my input is still appreciated.
First of all I would like to say that there are so called "ink save" softwares and there are "color management/matching" solutions.
1. If one only look for "ink save" you might as well make sure that you make a harder gcr setting in your conventional icc-profile workflow, kind of, right? That was the conclusion Fogra and IFRA made when they made the first seminar on this subject.
Some of the programs mentioned above have basically "reinvented" the gcr: more K and lower TIC.
GCR, invented 1946, has limitations. If you push it to hard you will get deviations, or, bigger deviations that you might be used to. A sky can become grey etc.
A good example of that: in our calculation for a certain print we can see that a neutral black prints best with a certain formula that give a tic of for example 178%. In the same print our calculations we can see that a darks saturated color need a total of 209% to have the best match. Try that with a conventional ICC profile or device link profile... If you set a tic in a ICC profile/device link to for example 200% you will spoil the color and have to much ink in the neutral black.
Anyway. If you only want to "save ink", you should accept no deviations, at all.
2. If you want to make sure that the color standard you have in your job shall be perfectly matched in press, and according to the standard you are aiming at. I would refer to this with the term quality (quality include more part though).
Then you need a color matching solution. This solution can, as a side effect, by calculating the best possible ink formulations give you a situation where you not only print less than before (since you printed to much that is) but actually give you the right amount of ink, not to little and not much (this help the term quality as well: minimized: smearing, see-through, web breaks, drying, less ink on readers hands etc).
We are always working according to point 2:
Total flexibility: one color in, any destination out (any screen (why not "concentric"), paper etc). Lot's of research done.
I bet this is the way all people will work in the future, concluding for happy clients, ISO competition winners and their happy clients. One good sign of that is that one of the vendors mentioned has copied our concept to the smallest detail. So now we are two...
The others only copy what we say...
Your questions
What you can expect?
Same result as before or worse, but with less ink. I have seen that the the ones mentioned and one more actually destroying more in terms of quality: but with less ink, yes.
What you should expect:
A better result with the right amount of ink.
How do I do a real world test?
Ask the vendors for a proper test, in your production.
Can I narrow my choices down to 4-5 well known vendors?
Wrong person to ask but if you look at the market, out there.
What I have seen is that the final test prints/competing are usually between two vendors.
Do they all use GCR?
Some obviously do: their softwares have settings for "ink save", "tic" etc.
One good example: Agfa's and ProImage's solution is the same software, with two different names. In a test in Germany the result was very different between these two = result depends of the settings. Not very serious if you ask me.
I personally stood next to one of the vendors you mention and asked why the blue sky had become grey in his print? The answer was "I must have put to much save ink." "So if you put max it become BW?" I asked. "Then you would save a lot..."
The solution we have developed does not have any settings for the user: the settings for a certain type of printing method is determined from the measurement (is is year 2009, we went to the moon some time back, etc, we should be able to calculate the appropriate settings, no?).
How do I integrate with my (Artworks) workflow?
Most workflow tools have "wait-on" functions etc where you can integrate vertical solutions. I have implemented very succcessfully in PPI, Dalim etc. Some vendors say that they have an integrated bla bla. It is normally not a problem to implement a stand alone system. Some systems are a bit rigid and then you have put the calculations before workflow or just before rip.
Questions to you:
What kind of print operation do you run?
Do you have several types of machines/screening/paper and several sites?
May I ask where in the world you are located?
Best regards
Andreas Bohlin
*/ I am part of the Binuscan team and we have developed the CMS Server (color managment system, service: more info:
Homepage | ICS).
We happen to show some years back that one could print less ink and the "ink save" pest started to spread around the world...
Now we have about 600 happy newspapers and commercial printer installations.
