SWOp ISO etc.

[tshark]

So here in the United States, in Digital Printing, what color code do I use? Our machine has choice of SWOP, Japan Color, ISO etc. What is the difference? What matches CMYK offset printing closer and Pantone printing. Thanks.

 

[inoxx]

SWOP is used in the United States. Iso in Europe.

 

[gordo]

SWOP is used in the United States. Iso in Europe.

I believe that this is changing with the increasing adoption of ISO 12647 in N America.

Also, AFAIK, SWOP is still an input specification - not an output specification. I.e. it is intended to determine the color on the proof. It is then the presses job to align to the SWOP proof by whatever methods are appropriate.

best, gordon p

 

[Magpie]

Swop, Fogra and GRACol are all standards for printing and proofing conditions in offset printing. GRACol and Fogra fit in the ISO 12647-2:2004 standard. (ISO is actually the International Organization for Standardization)

They have nothing much to do with digital printing. Of course if you decide to use the ICC profiles of either of them it will give you some consistency but in many cases you will have to fine-tune using your spectrometer and eyes, especially when it comes to Pantones as there is no way to print most of them as process colours.

 

[natty]

It is funny that SWOP is such a common standard as it is intended to simulate older web presses with very high levels of dot gain (this is why when applied it often darkens the colours alot)...

Seeing as the majority of 'offset' print that you are trying to match is sheetfed then this seems odd that it is so highly adopted...

Anyway, most modern sheetfed offset presses run fairly 'flat' (not much dot gain) much like a digital press does by default so i wouldn't get too hung up on profiles...

That said, here in Australia a lot of offset presses are profiled to GRACOL or FOGRA if that gives you a starting point...

 

[suess]

It's difficult to get consistency with toner based machines. Calibration is a must or it seems to help our shop a lot. Also, we started exporting pdf's with spot colors (when required) and choosing to "include all profiles". With that we have also changed to DOT2 in our config on the c6500, so we calibrate on dot2. This seems to be way more consistent for us or leaves us with a small adjustment within the IC-304 (ie.. add a little c,y,m, or k) and/or sometimes simply say 5%, 10%, or 15% darker/lighter.

 

[tshark]

I thank all of you for the informative replies. What a great help.