Re: Contract proofer combo
Re: Contract proofer combo
- Subject: Re: Contract proofer combo
- From: Darrian Young <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 17:33:57 +0100
Henrik Holmegaard wrote:
>
>
> Just two days ago in a demo, a customer wanted to print Delta Export
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> files
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>
Hold on a sec, Heidelberg has a paper somewhere that explains that
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Delta is a proprietary format the industry hasn't accepted, and which
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will be replaced with PDF. BESTColor supports Delta.
Colorproof also supports Delta but doesn't take half an hour to process it
before printing - it is immediate. Delta is just one format I mentioned.
There are also cases where clents want to proof Scitex CT/LW and TIFF-IT.
These are accepted formats and in contract proofing, you need to be able to
do it. I know best supports Delta, but in my previous post, I simple said
"the best solution we had been able to find", not the only.
>
>
> Yesterday, a
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> packaging customer needed extensive support for spot color simulation
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> (especially golds, etc.)
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>
iQueue ships with licenced Pantone color libraries, just as the
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ProfileMaker ColorPicker does. This belongs in the color server and
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not in the inkjet RIP, unless the inkjet RIP also doubles as color
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server.
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With iQueue you can proof custom colors defined as Lab, either those
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in bundled libraries or with libraries you measure yourself.
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You must make sure that your QuarkXPress / InDesign etc. setup uses
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the same names for the spot colors as those Pantone has licenced to
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GretagMacbeth. This has always been an issue with PMS colors.
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No inkjet images metallics so as the ColorPicker manual says the
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matching accuracy is only as good as your inkjet's gamut volume is
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large (well, in this crazy business maybe I shouldn't exclude any
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possibilities -:)).
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Canned spot color databases are fine, but for good metallic simulation, you
need to read and correct each color in my experience. Otherwise golds, for
example, come out rather green. Also, the spot colors need to be calculated
completely independently of the simulation profile. If I print a spot
color, I want it to come out exactly the same whether I am simulating
gravure or offset. This is possbiel with Colorproof. Once again, not the
only solution, but I haven't seen better yet.
>
> A CTP
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> client needed to have absolutely no dot on the proofs in the 1%, 2% and 3%
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> areas because in their offest prints, these areas are empty
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>
This is to do with the incoming data and not the matching or the
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proof printing, no? iQueue is an ICC color server and not a RIP. But
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if you need a gradation correction by color model that is also doable
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in iQueue.
No, this is not a matter of incoming data. In the proof, you need to
simulate the real limitations of the actual press. The image data may have
a white wall with very little dot that will print something out on one press
up to for example 2%, while on another there is nothing until 4%. I imagine
that is is doable in iQueue, like I said - it is an EXCELLENT program, but
maybe not as easily.
We find that in contract proofing there is quite a degree of difference as
to what is acceptable, but in general, at least here, the demands are quite
stringent. Many times we are asked to cut the images in half (either the
final or the proof) and put one on top of the other to see that there are no
or almost no differences. Tiny differences in tone in a ceramic or
furniture will put you into different models or series.
Turnaround for a print job is a minimum of a week, which excludes the Epsons
to a large degree - I have not been able to keep an Epson print the same
color for more than a couple of days (I am being a bit liberal on this one).
In the case of Epsons, it is not print quality but the ink change factor
that we have found to be limiting its popularity as a contract proofer.
Regards.
--
Darrian Young
Microgestio Valencia