Re: Rel vs Abs proofs
Re: Rel vs Abs proofs
- Subject: Re: Rel vs Abs proofs
- From: Marco Ugolini <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 23:55:54 -0700
In a message dated 10/12/06 7:59 PM, Roger Breton wrote:
>> why would you provide your client with a proof
>> exhibiting a degree of contrast that is higher than what can be matched on
>> press?
>
> Yeah, why?
>
> I think it boils down to a lot of irrational expectations and ignorance on
> the part of many folks involved in the printing food chain, like salesmen,
> buyers and designers. I agree, as Terry pointed out and Rick Gordon too,
> that having the best of both world may make a lot of people happy (abs for
> color throughout most of the tone range except in the pure whites). But
> that's yielding to the same irrational view on what a proof ought to be. For
> years, Dupont Waterproofs were made on the exact stock the jobs were ran on.
> Did people complained then? No. But now that inkjet printers are the norm,
> there is this uneasyness with "paper simulation" as though it was something
> wrong by definition, something to be avoided at all costs -- literally.
What my experience has taught me over many years of doing production work
for design firms is: "never ever show a designer or a client an AbsCol proof
that has not been trimmed!".
Trimming a proof that uses AbsCol is an easy way to "educate" these usually
tough customers not to question the proof's validity. But if you show them
an untrimmed proof, one of the first questions you are guaranteed to be
asked is something like: "Why is the print so dull?".
What they perceive, often without being able to articulate it precisely --
and what confuses them -- is the discrepancy between the simulated white and
the paper white of the proof's substrate visible at the edges.
We have a responsibility as production professionals to provide our clients
(designers, etc.) proofs that (a) are accurate, and (b) do not confuse them.
> I recognize that for those who must prepare jobs for unknown printing
> conditions, AbsCol proofs are hard to justify.
Sure. In that case I can clearly see the validity of a RelCol proof as an
inevitably "idealized" goal, to a slight degree.
> But for those who know exactly where things are going, I don't see RelCol
> as defendable, particularely when it is known very well that the job is
> going to a number 5 SWOP grayish/yellowish coated paper, where, shall
> we say, 80% of all magazine printing in the US is going?
I agree.
> Clients don't want to know the truth about the faith of their colors. They
> would rather cling irrationally to an idealistic proof, knowing damn well
> that it will not be matched in some unpredictable way on press, than be told
> the truth, upfront, about what to expect, realistically.
Yes, but the fault lies in giving them false hopes. It's our responsibility
to do our best to educate others in the practical consequences of playing
fast and loose with color, and how that ultimately backfires and creates
dissatisfaction and resentment in the client.
Otherwise, it's always the same song-and-dance: designers and marketing
oversell, and production is made to underperform and look bad as a
consequence. Which is another way to say that marketing and design do what
they do with relative immunity, and all the blaming flows downwards, onto
the production team, which finds itself treated almost like a bunch of
incompetents.
So, everyone is unhappy in the end: designers, production and the client. If
that doesn't bother us, please, let's keep doing it like that all the way to
kingdom come...
Regards.
--------------
Marco Ugolini
Mill Valley, CA
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