Latest version of Nexus, thoughts

[DCurry]

Nexus trapping is quite good. What trapping module are you using? Can you give a better example of whats not trapping. My guess is it's the settings, but not knowing more it's hard to guess.

I'm not sure what module I'm using (if you tell me how to check, I'll find out), but the scenarios where it let me down were very simple 2-color (Black plus Spot) situations where some things on the page trapped and others did not even though they obviously needed it. I've only been using it 2 months and it has happened on 3 different jobs. I've been doing this for over 17 years and there's nothing funky with these particular files that should give any trapping solution any problem.

Every RIP that I've seen that uses APPE has always had issues with flatting. RIP that uses Adobe Library and build there own can react much quicker then use adobe engine.

My own experience cannot back this up. Having used recent versions of both Prinergy and Apogee (both are APPE) over the past 4 years, I have not seen any flattening problems. In fact, my flattening problems disappeared with these RIPs.

 

[Chief_1975]

Esko do some great products and as already stated the fairly open with the roadmap for development so you know where the heading. Having said that in my opinion anything Esko is expensive (they would argue its specialised software and that for continuous development thats the price you pay) although if you jump in on latest releases is does feel like you beta testing for them!

 

[macdevin]

I'm not sure what module I'm using (if you tell me how to check, I'll find out), but the scenarios where it let me down were very simple 2-color (Black plus Spot) situations where some things on the page trapped and others did not even though they obviously needed it. I've only been using it 2 months and it has happened on 3 different jobs. I've been doing this for over 17 years and there's nothing funky with these particular files that should give any trapping solution any problem.



My own experience cannot back this up. Having used recent versions of both Prinergy and Apogee (both are APPE) over the past 4 years, I have not seen any flattening problems. In fact, my flattening problems disappeared with these RIPs.

I don't think Prinergy uses APPE. Its a custom engine, but they do use the the Library. Apogee is the same thing..
Both of them call it APPE but there not using the the engine as supplied from Adobe. Prinergy is a great PDF workflow.
If your in commercial work. I think it's the best out there.

As for what trapping module your using, look at the name... There is 5 trapping modules in all for nexus.. Raster Trap, vector trapping, powertrapper, PDF trapper and PDF powertrapper.

Powertrapper is only for 10.x +
Raster Trap is old and no longer supported for updates.

 

[macdevin]

Esko do some great products and as already stated the fairly open with the roadmap for development so you know where the heading. Having said that in my opinion anything Esko is expensive (they would argue its specialised software and that for continuous development thats the price you pay) although if you jump in on latest releases is does feel like you beta testing for them!

I could not agree more. Nexus has become a solid system. AE should be a beta product, we have been testing it for most of the year in house and were still not ready to leave nexus.

 

[Sev]

I'm not sure what module I'm using (if you tell me how to check, I'll find out), but the scenarios where it let me down were very simple 2-color (Black plus Spot) situations where some things on the page trapped and others did not even though they obviously needed it. I've only been using it 2 months and it has happened on 3 different jobs. I've been doing this for over 17 years and there's nothing funky with these particular files that should give any trapping solution any problem.



My own experience cannot back this up. Having used recent versions of both Prinergy and Apogee (both are APPE) over the past 4 years, I have not seen any flattening problems. In fact, my flattening problems disappeared with these RIPs.

In most cases when we have some trapping issues with Nexus trapping, it is almost always a matter of changing the trap setting from CT trapping to CT to LW trapping in the trap module. Then retry the trapping, and in most cases this will fix trapping issues. We do not use CT to LW as our default setting for Nexus trapping, since it will not trap a majority of files correctly (spreading dark colors into light colors, etc). We are very happy with Nexus, even though our version is also old - 8.4. We do have newer versions (9x), but that will require a new Nexus server, and for now we dont want to fix things that are not broken, since it is not in our budget yet.

-Sev

 

[DCurry]

PDF Trapper is what I have.

Since we are not using a CT/LW workflow, that's not the issue. I can remember using Brisque and PS/M Rips with FullAutoFrames and having the trapping to CTs be wrong because FAF wouldn't analyze the actual CT data unless you told it to, which often resulted in some crazy traps and took forever.

The files that trapped improperly were pure vector artwork - black (or tint of black) touching PMS - trapped properly in some areas and not at all in others on the same page and throughout the document. I work with very high page counts, so this is scary because it is very time consuming to check every single page and then go back and fix it by manually trapping in Neo.

Maybe I'll see if I can dig up one of the files and start a new thread if anyone wants to take a look. Now I just have to remember which job it was!

 

[PrepressDan]

Lets see if I can help out a little more.

Is nexus being phased out? Yes and No. Esko will eventually stop development on new functionality of Nexus. They are looking to migrate users to their new workflow Automation Engine. This being said, they have continued to put out new DOT releases and they plan to keep supporting it. If I didn't have an existing workflow I would agree with others and look at all products by all vendors. But I believe nexus is very solid and part of protecting the investment for me would be to really look at the PDF workflow. Just because Esko is moving to a new workflow does not mean nexus is a bad system. On the contrary I would say that over the years it has been one of the most flexable systems especially when you consider that it was never tied to a particular output device. It worked well with all.

I can also speak on the RIP aspect of which is better, proprietary or APPE. The world is moving toward the Adobe print engine (APPE). Prinergy has been using it for a few years now as well as some of the other big rip companies out there. Esko is also in the process of going to the APPE on their future RIP (Imaging Engine). Still not sure when this will hit the streets.

APPE has the advantage of being the most common rip and the Adobe libraries support. But, that doesn't always mean that it is better. What I have noticed is that the APPE will do a great job of Ripping a acrobat PDF. but when it comes to non Acrobat PDF's it is hit or miss.

The Nexus PDF rip engine was created long before adobe even introduced transparencies. They did this because Artpro could support transparencies before the PDF spec could. The nexus PDF rip also has the enfocus PDF libraries under the hood. This is usually a good thing as we know how well enfocus understands PDF.

There will never be the "perfect rip". I think in the future you will see all rip companies go to the Adobe rip just because it makes sense. But remember that this is just the rip kernal. There is still a huge amount of other overhead that goes along with a rip (Screening sets, object based screening, curve software, color conversion, distortion etc...) All of these things are written by the rip companies and the APPE just handles the "pixel machine" portion.

Hope this helps

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Does Kodak Prinergy use APPE? According to Adobe it does:

Adobe: Adobe PDF Print Engine: OEM partners

In addition to the Kodak press release for Prinergy v4 on the Adobe page, the Prinergy v5.1 release notes also state that APPE v2 is used, solving issues that were found in the APPE v1 engine used by earlier versions of Prinergy.

That being said, the APPE white paper from Adobe states the following:

"The Adobe PDF Print Engine is a rendering engine technology that Adobe partners use to build tailored solutions for different market segments. Each print partner implements the Adobe PDF Print Engine in its own way. The Adobe PDF Print Engine is the basis for a range of products for previewing and printing PDF documents at different stages of the workfow. In each solution, however, the Adobe PDF Print Engine can interpret PDF directly, thus eliminating the need for conversion to PostScript."


Stephen Marsh

 

[prepressguru]

The feeling I get from Esko is Nexus is being rolled into Automation Engine. AE becomes the interface but when the heavy lifting of creating the Hi rez plate image happens, nexus is in the background to produce it.

This is quite similar how Printready works with prinect and meta dimension.

The advantage for us with an old Nexus, we can upgrade to the latest Nexus, then add AE later to have a more complete workflow.

p

 

[prepressguru]

Yes, PDF processor brings to nexus a whole new set of modules that are all native PDF. Like trapping, pitstop, join pages, split pages, etc....... It also adds a new rip kernal to the nexus system that is native PDF. So no longer do you need to flatten or anything. The thing I like about the PDF upgrade is that you keep all the existing modules that you have and just add new ones. So you can use the same system to run legacy files and new PDF work.

@ Jeff and Dcurry

Just curious do you have one Nexus computer processing all your tasks? Meaning ingesting files, proofing, and then final output (plating)

I am trying to figure out if we can go with one install of Nexus with PDF processor instead of 2. Currently we have 2 Nexus's with one doing a page trap workflow. The other Nexus is a imposition workflow which handles proofing and plating which links back to the first Nexus.

My thought is with the PDF processor there will be smaller files moved around the system until it goes to plate, instead of all the rastered files in classic rip. Plus hardware these days is very strong with multicores and hyperthreading.

p

 

[PrepressDan]

We did go from 2 boxes to 1. Hard to say if you can depending on how many jobs you are running. Back in the day we had 2 boxes because we were pre-ripping all files in our links and pages workflow. Now we are using all PDF so the only rip we do is for screening. 1 box is working well for us.

 

[prepressguru]

Hey Jeff

Thanks for your input. Would you be able to tell me what your hardware specs are for your 1 nexus box?
We currently only have 3 operators using Nexus but with all the raster files and old hardware it bogs down quite a bit at times.

p

 

[DCurry]

We have 1 box, 2 operators. Seems to keep up okay.

Our workflow is:

PDF copied into trapping workflow on Nexus.
Trapped PDF placed into Preps 5.3.3 run list.
JDF printed from Preps.
JDF copied to Nexus for ripping.

 

[prepressguru]

Hey Dan

Thanks for the info. Your setup would be similar to ours except we have 3 users. Curious about preps. Since you output to JDF you don't use OPI. Do you have preps plus? Also do you happen to know your hardware specs for you nexus computer?

p

 

[DCurry]

We actually have Preps Pro - we're a book printer and so the multiple signatures feature is helpful (although they didn't know how to use it til I go there recently!) We do not use OPI - the hi-res trapped PDF is placed in the Preps Run List. The JDF point Nexus to that very PDF.

Not sure about the specs on the Nexus box - if it's like everything else in the shop it was probably purchased used. I can look at it tomorrow and see what it's got.

 

[prepressguru]

Hey Dan

Thanks for the info. We have been trying to figure out what version of Preps to get. The OPI feature only comes with the pro version. I was worried the low rez link file, of some sort, might need to be placed in Preps then swapped at Nexus. But since you are using JDF then I don't see it being necessary. Good to know.

It's amazing how at times people don't know what features do what, or how to fully use the software they own.
Ah world of printing!

p

 

[DCurry]

Our Nexus box specs:

Intel Xeon CPU ([email protected])
4GB ram
Windows Server 2003

The only time it really slows down is if I have a long document that traps - it can take a while. Doesn't happen too often, though, since most of our book interiors are 1 color.

 

[prepressguru]

Dan, awesome thanks for the specs. Now I can give them some real world feedback.

p

 

[pressdisk]

My personal experience with AE, Backstage and FlexRip versus Nexus is that there is a greater degree of flexibility that that can be be more selectively and intuitively presented to the user and that an anecdotal compare between the two setups has me feeling that the AE setup is not only faster but far, far more robust. This is very important, unless you like tinkering "under the hood."

 

[VectorSigma]

To upgrade or not to upgrade, that is the question...

To upgrade or not to upgrade, that is the question...

Hello all,

Just joined this site to try and get some input from the "real world".

I work for an offset printing company that does everything from stationary, to flyers, posters, and full magazines/books from 4 to 200+ pages. Running from one to six colors with varnishes and everything in between.

We have been running Nexus for the 9+ years I've worked here. Currently using 10.1.3 with the PDF RIP.

We have run into some issues with Nexus on occasion. Mostly getting drop shadows to proof/print correctly (which I have found work arounds for), and most recently had an issue with #'s in Arial Black proofing correctly but plating as something that looks like an entirely different font. I've been in contact with Esko about the # issue and they got the same results. This was their response:

Dear Larry,
The problem with the file is related to the way Adobe is encoding the font and how Nexus is reading this encoding. Nexus 10.1.3 is the last update for the Nexus PDF RIP. If you need to process this file it will need to be outlined before the Nexus can process the file. I did process the file through the AE14 Imaging Engine Rip and it does read the font encoding. This is the upgrade path for all the Nexus PDF RIP customers that have current support contracts.

We are looking into upgrading to the AE14 package but would like to get some feed back from people that have this new RIP currently in use in production (not just bench testing) in the offset printing world.

What are the pros/cons to switching to the new RIP system?
Anything we should be aware of?

Any input you might have would be greatly appreciated!