Re: Guidelines for color safety in color management unfriendly environment
Re: Guidelines for color safety in color management unfriendly environment
- Subject: Re: Guidelines for color safety in color management unfriendly environment
- From: Chris Murphy <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 16:05:12 -0600
On Sep 26, 2004, at 4:51 AM, Paul Schilliger wrote:
We did all these things. We discussed a workspace with this printer
and his technicians three years ago and agreed on Eurostandard Coated
20% UCR 330%. But my feeling was at the time that they did not really
know what we were talking about; and other than naming profiles, I am
not a specialist either. Some jobs were correct but others were not
that good. For this last job, they made an approval Sherpa as usual.
When I saw it I said to the director that I found it too red. He said
his Sherpas were always more red than the final prints.
The printer is borderline incompetent. At the very least they are
playing with fire, and your money, in close proximity as to make him
someone to stay far away from.
That some jobs are correct and others are not means process control is
suspect. If that's the case, the printer is incompetent. You cannot
have good printing if the press behavior is floating all over the
place.
That he's willing to accept a Sherpa proof, which is an inkjet proof,
that doesn't come really darn close to his press condition is sloppy if
they aren't a good approximate match to what comes out on press. It's a
perfectly capable proofing system for such purposes.
I am acquainted with the Fuji match prints that often have a magenta
cast, so I gave him a print from my own and he said he would check
that with his guys. They were on a tight schedule so a few days later
everything was printed. When I saw the prints, I thought "Oh my God,
maybe I should quit and spend the rest of my life looking after
sheep." But then I remembered that sheep have their own set of
problems! I then compared the prints with the files on my screen and
saw that if I assigned (not converted) Eurocoated V2 (or maybe
Photoshop 5 default) instead of Eurostandard Coated 20% UCR 330% to
the files, I had almost exactly the terrible look of the prints on my
screen, which made me think that the operator had interpreted the
files as Eurocoated and not as Eurostandard. The files had still the
Eurostandard profile embedded though! Which made me guess that they
open the files with "discard profiles" turned on. Unfortunately, this
is almost the norm here with most printers.
The question that remains is whether they were converted or not. You
are saying you already converted them to "Eurostandard Coated 20% UCR
330%" and that's what was embedded. If their color management policy is
Off, then that profile would be ignored, but no conversion should have
occurred unless they manually performed a conversion. If on the other
hand the policy was Convert to Working CMYK, then a conversion could
have occurred automatically.
In my opinion, you have an equivalent contract proof because the
printer accepted the proof you supplied. As bad as it sounds things
actually printed, it sounds like he didn't "check it with his guys" and
it just went to press.
But I see every day nicely printed matter even from these printers, so
there must be a way to work with them. I know they should tell me how
to do it! But they did actually and it did not work very well for me,
so I thought maybe you guys who are the specialists could help me
through! (...and not push me down the cliff, please). Before, I used
to have the films made by a specialist and bad surpises were not that
many. But now with the computer to plate technology, it is another
workflow and someone has got to adapt. I am just one small customer
among hundreds and I guess I am the one who has to adapt...
CTP is no excuse. You do not have any more responsibilities or any
different responsibilities in preparing files for CTP than plate
produced analog. Your job is to either a.) separate the file per
printer's specifications or b.) supply files with embedded profiles so
the printer can separate them.
So my question remains for those of you who work with european
printing standards: What would you use in my situation? Eurocoated,
Eurocoated V2 or Photoshop 5 default seem the options I have.
This is an impossible question to answer given the information. We have
no idea what the printer's press behavior actually is. Without that
information, we can only guess. If the printer can't tell you how their
press's behave or how to make a separation, then they're idiots. This
is basic information that a printer has to know or they might as well
be making donuts. If you were to ask the printer what ink is and they
said "I don't know" then you'd frown, right? Press behavior is not a
whole lot more complex of a subject. They're the ones in a position to
know, and if they don't know then that's just crazy.
Maybe I should go right to the technician who opens the files at the
printer and see how he does it. My guess would be that he uses
Photoshop 5 with color management turned off.
If that's the case, your file should have been left untouched. If it
was untouched, then the separation was not appropriate for the actual
press condition. If it was converted, then the printer is likely to
blame.
And before using any of the ISO profiles, you might ask the printer if
they've ever heard of ISO, let alone ISO 12647. If they haven't, then
you can't bet these profiles will help you any better than what you've
been using.
Chris Murphy
Color Remedies (TM)
www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor
-------------------------------------------------------------
Co-author "Real World Color Management, 2nd Edition"
Published by PeachPit Press (ISBN 0-321-26722-2)
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