Re: To scramble or not to scramble
Re: To scramble or not to scramble
- Subject: Re: To scramble or not to scramble
- From: Graeme Gill <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 11:09:56 +1000
Steve Clark wrote:
I'm using Monaco Platinum 4.8 with a DTP41UV to make profiles for
printing presses, Epsons inkjets as well as an IRIS. It's been
recommended by some to scramble the patch set, (usually 1729) for
printing. I often have trouble reading scrambled patches printed on the
Epsons and have to use either a black Sharpie or WhiteOut to fix the
thin strip twixt some of the dark patches. It seems the algorithm they
use is not intelligent enough to know the densities that will be
produced in some of the darker patches, and they use black as the
separator when in reality white or some other lighter color should be
used. I called support and they told me that I was printing too dark.
I'm printing the targets un-colormanaged and same as source with the
correct paper type chosen. When I use the Sharpie/ WhiteOut method and
read the patches I end up with beautiful profiles and am extremely
happy with the results I'm getting. It's quite annoying to drop that
kind of money on software and then rely on WhiteOut to get it to work
correctly.
Yes, the '41 and '51 are rather less good at picking the patch boundaries,
than many people hope they are. It can work quite reliably if you have
a patch arrangement that both uses colored spacers between the
patches (since they will recognize the contrast in any of three
density channels), and arrange all the patches so as to
maximize the worst case density step between patches. (In
fact, for a small enough set of patches, you can get away
without any spacers if you arrange the patches appropriately).
Of course if you are stuck with Monaco, this observation
isn't going to help you much.
Tell them they need to make their software a bit smarter :-) :-)
What is the straight scoop on whether I really need to scramble or
not? I've run the same target out unscrambled and it reads fine and
the results seem similar. I'm not experienced enough with ColorThink to
discover what the discrepancies may be in the profiles generated
scrambled vs not scrambled.
If it works for you that way, then you really don't have much choice,
unless you change your instrument (Say to a SpectroScan), or the profiling
package. It will only hurt your profiling if the printer has some sort of
systematic (ie. top to bottom, or left to right, or ink duct) type
reproduction artefact.
Graeme Gill.
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