UNcoated proofing

[jcallison]

I am curious how commercial sheetfed printers are proofing their uncoated press work. Are you using an inkjet proofer with uncoated paper? Is this a separate proofer than what you use for coated work? Any advice or suggestions would be helpful.

 

[meddington]

You can use the same paper that you use for coated proofing (inkjet) only using an uncoated profile as your device to simulate (a profile derived from FOGRA29 data for example).

 

[jcallison]

We tried using an uncoated proofing profile on the coated stock. Clients rejected proofs because black looks gray and sometimes the shadows look strange as well.

 

[rich apollo]

We tried using an uncoated proofing profile on the coated stock. Clients rejected proofs because black looks gray and sometimes the shadows look strange as well.

Black looks gray? Kinda' like it will on the uncoated stock?

 

[jcallison]

Yes, exactly how it will look on uncoated stock. I can proof uncoated work on coated stock all day long--easy as pie. Clients don't like it, but they don't mind that gray if they see it on the uncoated proofing stock. I've heard of people using 2 inkjet proofers, one for coated and one with the uncoated roll. Is anyone here in the forum doing that?

 

[meddington]

we've used uncoated stock for proofing before, but didn't find it worth the effort as uncoated isn't utilized much by our clients, so we generally kept coated stock loaded in all proofers. It also made profiling a bit more challenging, as you no longer have a nice wide gamut in which to emulate a smaller gamut, and have to restrict ink more robustly than with coated stock. It can be done though.

 

[rich apollo]

Are you simulating the paper color on the proofs?

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

We tried both. But taking a real job and showing the customer that the uncoated job does infact look as grey as the proof showed does make a difference. Explain to the client that the purpose of the proof is not for the pictures to look as rich as they can but to show what the colours will look like on the finished product. How else do you see if you need to increase contrast or consider a different stock. There are some very nice semicoated papers that give the "feel" of uncoated but still allow the richness approaching that of a coated paper.
If they are concerned with the pictures maybe they should consider another paper for the job.