It is true that a closed-loop system brings huge expectations, again, from printers and experienced operators who fail to grasp the important aspects of offset lithography -- I can't speak for other printing processes. It is remarkable, in North America at least, in my humble experience, that the bulk of these systems are still predicated on controlling ink optical density. / Roger -----Original Message----- From: Mike Strickler [mailto:info@mspgraphics.com] Sent: Monday, July 18, 2016 6:32 PM To: Colorsync Users List <colorsync-users@lists.apple.com> Cc: Roger Breton <graxx@videotron.ca> Subject: Re: How is a printing press calibrated and how much does it cost? Perhaps, Roger. But maybe this attitude is partly born of the experience with traditional fingerprinting approaches, wherein the press is "studied" and its idiosyncrasies recorded for use in vaguely defined procedures for compensating for them. Best practices today involve measurement against industry specifications and immediate correction of deficiencies, again, premised on the idea that the offset press and inks is a relatively standardized system. Where we don't have a widely accepted standard, i.e., when printing with high-chroma inks and/or FM screening, or printing on plastics, a house standard can be made. But this is still an "active" approach rather than the "passive" one of merely characterizing and tracking over time, with occasional corrections made. My experience is that when this approach is explained and demonstrated there is much less resistance because the "gratification" is immediate. It is true that many presses ship with expensive closed-loop systems that don't always work as well as they should, and in these cases it can be very difficult persuading the company that something more needs to be done. I recently had a particularly unfortunate experience of this. On Jul 18, 2016, at 2:50 PM, Roger Breton <graxx@videotron.ca> wrote:

Mike Strickler (wisely) wrote :

...

Dismiss any suggestion that an annual or semiannual "fingerprinting" or "certification" is what you need--these are quite close to worthless for assuring consistent color output.

Yet... In my humble experience, the majority of printers are reluctant to systematically "study" the long term behavior of their equipment as they see this as a recognition that their million dollar equipment are inherently "deficient"? I'm constantly faced with this attitude.

Best / Roger Breton www.graxx.ca