Re: How is a printing press calibrated and how much does it cost?
Re: How is a printing press calibrated and how much does it cost?
- Subject: Re: How is a printing press calibrated and how much does it cost?
- From: Refik Telhan <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:12:26 +0300
- Thread-topic: How is a printing press calibrated and how much does it cost?
Hi Jorge,
Depending on which side of the Atlantic, the printing presses are either calibrated by the G7 methodology (North America) or by the TVI method (Europe). Once this calibration is done, the presses are profiled in a similar fashion. As both sides are targeting the same international standard for sheet-fed offset, currently ISO 12647-2:2013, the resulting ICC profiles from both sides cover almost the same gamut.
On the European side, the datasets for coated paper follow the FOGRA27 (2004) -> FOGRA39 (2007) -> FOGRA51(2013) track.
Similarly, the datasets for uncoated paper follow the FOGRA29 (2004) -> FOGRA47 (2007) -> FOGRA52 (2013) track.
In fact, the ICC Profile Registry page of the official International Color Consortium web site:
http://www.color.org/registry/index.xalter
does have an extensive list of relevant ICC profiles. But please make note that this page is somewhat outdated; it still does not list FOGRA51 and FOGRA52 datasets and their related ICC profiles.
From the look of things your printer really seems to be stuck in the very old days. If they are in not capable of following any of the calibrate-than-profile road to any of these standards, simply ask them to supply an ICC profile that represents the printing that they can do on your paper. If they cannot do this by themselves, then just send them an ICC profile target, such as IT8.7/4 and/or ECI2002 as a page of your job and ask them to print it as they normally would print your job. You can then have these targets profiled by a ICC profile service provider.
Once you obtain the ICC profile, you can use it for all of your RGB-to-CMYK conversions and soft/hard proofing purposes. You can then just tell the printer to go on doing what they have been doing up to now and not change anything. The printer has to make sure that all 5 of their printing presses print to the same internal standard which is represented by the ICC profile. And if they are not capable of matching the outputs from these 5 presses, then they should dedicate one press for you and keep that press printing consistently.
If they are not capable of doing any of the above, you should seriously start looking for a new print service provider that is capable of printing to a known standard.
Best regards,
--------------------------------------------------------
Refik Telhan, EE B.Sc.
Light and Color Management Consultancy
Aydogdu Sokak 12A, Tarabya Mahallesi
Sariyer, 34457, Istanbul, Turkey
Mobile: + (90) (532) 426 21 87
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On 18.07.2016 08:53, "Jorge ." <colorsync-users-bounces+rtelhan=email@hidden on behalf of email@hidden> wrote:
Hi,
I think I have a decent understanding of color management from image input,
display and PDF output related to desktop publishing and photography
editing software, etc. but I am not familiar with what goes into actually
having a printing press calibrated and being able to produce accurate and
predictable color from different printers, inks and papers from the POV of
someone operating the printers themselves.
I have the suspicion that the person I interface with when communicating
with the printer I have no option but to work with, and who holds the
responsibility and decision power of what and how to tweak in either the
files I send or the printers themselves, is not particularly versed in
current color management concepts either. I actually have the suspicion
that he is stuck in mid-90s ways to do stuff, doing manual tweaking of ink
output levels and so.
I am meeting with that person in order to know why the magazines we print
with them all seem washed out and seem to have a blue-ish shift in all
pages, why they feel they need to tweak the ink balance of the PDF files we
send them (if I understood correctly that that is what they feel they need
to do each time we send them something), and how we should be sending them
our stuff in order to make their lives easier and less prone to unexpected
colors.
Without one bit of intention of sounding like a jerk to that person (I have
to work with him and them whatever the conclusion), I would like to
anticipate what concepts that person should be familiar with in order to
know, well… whether he knows what he is doing and there is something we can
do to have better output, or whether he knows his stuff but there are other
determinants (like cost) that limit how nice our prints can be or whether
we are stuck with someone that does not know his job.
When I send a PDF to the printer, and they will use, say, 5 different
printing machines to print it, what goes into having them all print the
same source consistently?
I assume different levels of color consistency and predictability have
different associated costs. What would be different "leagues" in printing
press calibration related to how much equipment, software and calibration
process would cost? What can those costs add up to for the printer?
If the printer is able to handle RGB objects in a PDF (which they seemingly
do), is there any benefit **from their POV** in me providing a PDF/X-4
instead of a PDF/X-1a and use RGB where it seems it makes sense (like
pictures and other elements where I am not concerned about what/how many
inks with what halftone pattern they use but with having their colors print
predictably)? (I would assume so, if they somehow need to apply color
conversion to my files to their particular CMYK color space, but I do not
know).
Up until know we have been generating the PDFs with Adobe's
UncoatedFOGRA29.icc as output intent without really confirming whether that
is appropriate for their printers (besides just knowing that the paper is
uncoated). What our output intent should be is one of the answers I would
like to ask, but I would like to anticipate whether this person can
actually provide an answer to that.
Jorge
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