colour management and printer calibration

[bmor]

I work in the art dept of a screen printing and large format digital print shop. Over the past few years we have acquired a few new machines and 2 in particular are fast becoming our main work horses. These are the Oce Arizona 250 and 350 flatbed UV printers.

Cut to the chase: we are spending too much time getting the colour dialed just right. Back in the day when we only had Roland aqueous printers we did colour by eye on a job to job basis. This is no longer cutting it.

I am not a colour expert but from everything I have read I presume these printers need to be calibrated with a photo spectrometer. As well my monitor should be calibrated as well. We have the "Eye One" spectrometer and software but have yet to implement it in our work flow.

As well as the 2 Oce's we have Roland Eco Sol roll fed printers (XJ740) and a Roland XJ1000 full on solvent machine. These Rolands do not seem to have the same issues as the Oce's but the Oce's are great once we finally get colour dialed because of their flat bed (media thickness, any substrate etc.).

what is your opinion of the BenQ 24" LCD monitor? I wonder if this monitor is worth trying to calibrate or will it have to be replaced?

Should I be ditching the profiles (like SWOP) that come with my customers files and going with no ICC profiles until I am able to generate my own? When I print from Adobe App's I choose Sheetfed Coated v2 with the default rendering intent.

Any advice from anyone who has been through this would greatly be appreciated. We are Mac based with Onyx PC based rip stations on the Oce's.

After browsing around here a bit I have ordered "Real World Color Management" and am looking into the GMG software.

[sceptical munro]

hi bmor
i would say you need to start using youre spectrometer soonest , the monitor should be calibrated as well but not a priority.

[Halit Kolsuz]

hi bmor,

I am in the same way wtih sceptical munro, firstly you have to begin this job with spectrometter. For the good coor management you have to print all time same color that you used as CMYK and According to me you should set to work with color standardization.When you begin to print all time same conditions and same colors you have to calibrate your printer that you used to take print out than you have to calibrate your monitor as to your print out.

As spectroEye, I propose to spectroeye from xrite it's very handy to use both print side and lab.

If you want to information in detail, please let me know..

[Colour_Guy]

I haven't had good experiences with Benq monitors, they are only suitable for office use. Do you rely on the monitor for accurate colour? If not, it doesn't matter. When I go to a customer site, I usually use the eye dropper in an application for the colour numbers as most people don't have good calibrated monitors.

If your customer has embedded a SWOP profile in their job then the assumption is they want to match a SWOP press. The reality is that SWOP is the default setting in Adobe apps. Your inkjets have a much wider colour gamut than SWOP but once a file is converted to SWOP the colour is gone even if you convert to wider colour gamut. If a customer sends you an RGB file and you convert to your inkjet profile you will get much more saturated colour and benefit from the full capability of your inkjet.

The EyeOne is great and Real World Color Management is a great book.

[encompus]

A Couple of things...

Invest in training. I train the Roland University Class in Irvine California and it totally focuses on Color Management with Roland Printers and the methods could used to color manage Oce printers as well. I also am one of X-Rite's Color Expert Trainers and we offer seminars in a city near you. Check with X-Rite for the next seminar.

One thing to know is this. In the printing process, all color transforms from a source color space to a print color space. Customers will supply a file that either has an embedded source color space (profile) or will not. The default color space for CMYK in Adobe applications is US Web Coated SWOP v2 and will most likely always be the source color space. Your job as a printer is to manage the color transformation from source to print color space. You do this by building calibrations and profiles for the medias and printers that you have in your shop. This is tedious but well worth it.

You have an i1 which is great. Put it to use by getting some training. You will be glad you did. If your interested I can train you via Acrobat Connect. I have done this for many clients.

Sincerely,

Marc

[prepresscolor]

This is why there are "Color Management" specialists in the world. We do this every day for a living. Sure, you can do it but, first you have to learn how, then you must practice, then you do the job, put the tools away and next time you need an adjustment you have to re-learn the process all over.
Unless you have someone on site who does this every week it will be cheaper to find a specialist in the area, pa their fee, and go on about our business.

[bmor]

It's been a while since I checked this post. Thanks for all the insight.
We have been extremely busy these past few weeks and time spent chasing colour is time lost on production. I am trying to relate to the company owner that we need to calibrate our machines and generate some ICC profiles. This man has 35 years under his belt as a screen printer and can tell immediately what colour(s) an image is lacking.I have shown him the Onyx web page which is an instruction on creating your own profiles using a Photospectrometer for each of your media profiles.
It's a catch-22 situation, we're so busy that we haven't put aside time and resources to learn calibration and yet we lose time because of this. I know we have to get with the program in order to become more efficient. And we will, with a good chance of using a consultant.

[Mike Strickler]

As someone who has had the opportunity to work with printing, prepress, and design personnel over the years on color management issues I'll offer my own "real-world" perspective. Two common mistakes are frequently made by these businesses. The first is trying to solve complex problems by simply buying a product. Nothing in particular against GMG, but your challenge is first to understand where the problems lie in your workflow. We often see dealers pushing a product that supposedly will solve all these difficulties while glossing over the education and training component. There is a logic to color management, and unless you grasp its basics you can't even decide which tools you need, let alone use them correctly.

The second error is overestimating the amount of in-house expertise that can be developed and implemented. The main value of training courses, e.g., in color management, is in grasping the basics and helping to evaluate needs in the shop. Anything more ambitious is usually a mistake. Advanced tools such as profile-making apps in practice get left on the shelf. Advanced tasks are best left to knowledgeable hired guns who can implement sound, easy-to-use procedures and tools and quickly get you back on track and help keep you there. This is far less expensive, too. A few lucky printing companies have real in-house color experts, but they are the exception.

Mike Strickler
Certified EFI BestColor Implementer
Idealliance G7 Expert