Photography to offset print color management steps

[mulo_g]

I am a custom folder maker. I do binding by pasting covering paper on grey board and then creasing it. One of my clients wants me to take up a project where I have to take photographs of his products viz. carpets, offset print covers with these pictures on them and make folders.
His main requirement is that the colors of pictures on covers should match the colors of his products.
I am relatively new to this process of color matching from product to offset printing. What should be the work flow? What processes and software are involved? A step by step help will be highly appreciated.

 

[Schnitzel]

Normally I like to help people who are new to color management. However, as someone who learned color management and color science all by himself, I advise you to get a professional to help you with this project. If you are not familiar with this subject, it will take you too much time, effort and money to produce this job, if you succeed in the first place.

Moreover, there is no "step by step" guide for color management - it's more like black magic. You must know what you are doing in order to get a predictable result. Well, there is sort of high-level principles common to all color management workflows:

1. Photograph the product in a stable, repeatable environment (e.g., studio).
2. Characterize (profile) the camera's behavior.
3. Print a characterization sheet in your press, using a stable, repeatable printing process.
4. Characterize the press's behavior.
5. Convert the photos from step 1 to the press profile.
6. Print and view the results under specific lighting.
7. Be happy.

Note: step 7 usually does not happen.

 

[mulo_g]

"Normally I like to help people who are new to color management." " However, as someone who learned color management and color science all by himself"

Thanks and I appreciate both points.
However supposing I wish to make a beginning, my dumb questions are, do I attach or save profile with the files, e.g. psd? I have an i1 photospectrometer device. What softwares do I need to work and start learning?

 

[Schnitzel]

If you have an i1Pro, then you should also have i1Profiler, which is X-rite's main software for creating ICC profiles. Use it to create profiles for both the camera and the press. Whether to embed the profile in the image depends on your pre-press workflow, it's not necessarily required.

I'm really sorry, your question is so general I can't give you better instructions - they will not get you where you want. A good starting point is "Real World Color Management" by Fraser, Murphy and Bunting. Good luck!

 

[gordo]

I am a custom folder maker. I do binding by pasting covering paper on grey board and then creasing it. One of my clients wants me to take up a project where I have to take photographs of his products viz. carpets, offset print covers with these pictures on them and make folders.
His main requirement is that the colors of pictures on covers should match the colors of his products.
I am relatively new to this process of color matching from product to offset printing. What should be the work flow? What processes and software are involved? A step by step help will be highly appreciated.

I'm a printer but if you give me step by step instructions I'd like to rebuild the engine in your car.

1. You will likely fail, despite having instructions, if you don't know what you're doing photography-wise.

2. Assuming you know photography (lens choice (focal length, aperture, distortion correction, mega pixels, etc), ISO, white balance, embedded profiles, etc.) you'll still have to deal with lighting issues like how the dies of the carpet material react to the spectral composition of the lights.

3. You can not match the colors of his products with your pictures. You may be able simulate the appearance of the carpets.

What you should do is suggest that your customer hire a pro photographer instead of you to take the snaps of his products - and/or be satisfied with "happy" colors in the printing. You could also make sure that a Kodak Q-13 or Q-14 color control strip is included with each photo (see attached). Museums use this tool or ones similar to help with getting the colors right when they reproduce art. If the Q strip is reproduced fairly similar in the individual images then that will bring some consistency to the appearance of the images. It also provides a constant color reference for color editing in Photoshop. IMHO profiling the camera is a waste of time. Finally, send your customer to a good printshop that does this kind of work. And offer to do the bidery/finishing work in exchange for providing them with a new customer.

 

[keith1]

This reminds me of the second or third process job I ever ran. I was a pretty good small press operator at the time but had no clue to the finer technicalities of printing. The job was to reproduce different colours of stucco samples. No different than trying to print paint colour samples except that the original photos were of actual stucco, textures & all.
The job was run in 4 passes on a Hamada 600. No colour key - I think the boss saved $50. It was doomed from the start.