Got colors that don’t match?
We Bring You Back From Chaos
- Color management
- Job management
- DAM selection, conceptualization and implementation
- Automation and customization
- Prepress and printing standardization
The best way to look at a workflow is to consider every step of the way, from initial image to screen to desktop printer to prepress and production and to press. It’s a long road with specific areas of expertise along the way. No matter where you are in the chain, you would get an overall understanding of the whole process with deeper knowledge of your specific area.
Whether you’re a photographer, an artist, a designer, a retoucher, a production artist, a prepress operator, a printer, there’s a lot to find out. Photographers, for instance, grapple with whether to shoot in RAW format and whether to deliver RGB or CMYK files. How much retouching should they do? What’s the best way to communicate with the client? Ad agencies have always juggled fast and high volume printing with color accuracy. Is there a machine somewhere that will give them predictable color fast? Printers look for standards that will allow them to match a proof to their press, and a press to another press. Should they move to G7?
With evolving technology comes an endless supply of new questions. In our commitment to provide the best possible solution, we test RIPs, new software, papers, printers. If you’re curious about a specific RIP or printer, please give us a call.
Contact Erica Aitken – info@rodsandcones.com – (831) 421-0131
Proofing is a word that means a lot of different things. Softproofing for example, is finally available and so precise that press sheets are matched to monitors. Inkjet proofs can achieve a match of greater than 98% consistently and have become today’s contract proof. Some inkjet printers have sophisticated built-in color management including a spectrophotometer. And laser printers who could never produce accurate color consistently are finally reliable for fast, high-volume accurate prints.
On press, things move all the time. Standards are constantly questioned and new methods developed. Do you go with SWOP or with G7? Or both? Should you accept a file displayed on a monitor as a contract to match on press? Who decides what the standards will be and how do you make sure that your file is correctly printed?
Because when neutrality is defined and maintained, color will usually look correct and stay consistent through a press run
G7’s success was so spectacular for GRACoL workflows, that G7 methods were tested on other workflows such as SWOP. Managing gray so carefully paid dividends in SWOP workflows and in other workflows as they were tested. Today, a series of printing conditions has been defined in a new standard, CGATS 21-2 (ISO PAS 15339). This family of print conditions, referred to as the CRPC1-7, has seven categories, each with its own reference data set. All of them share a visual appearance because they’re all based on G7 neutral gray appearance.
These seven sets are called:
Typical ColdsetNews – Small gamut printing (newsprint)
Typical HeatsetNews Moderate gamut printing on improved newsprint type paper
Typical PremUncoated Utility printing on a matte, uncoated type paper
Typical SuperCal General printing on super-calendared paper
Typical PubCoated Typical publication printing
Typical PremCoated Large gamut (typically commercial) printing
Typical Extra Large Extra-large gamut printing processes
In the map shown next page, the innermost outline shows the gamut outline for ISO15339-CRPC1, which defines color for a newspaper printed without heat-drying the inks. The rest grow outward, with ISO15339-CRPC7, an extra, extra large gamut process being the biggest. In the second image, comparing the biggest and smallest 3D versions, there’s quite a difference in total color printable, but applying G7 to both processes provides the best possible visual match for the two processes.
We will get a match between monitor, printers and presses and we’ll make sure that your workflow is the most efficient in terms of time and cost. We can advise you on what printer is best for you, whether you need a RIP and which one, and if you would do better using the G7 method on press.
To get the most out of your resources, bring us in to evaluate your workflow. If in need of something more efficient, we’ll design a new workflow especially for you. Our proposal is backed by a ROI, technology, and the most seasoned workflow experts.
Contact Rods and Cones at (831) 421-0131 or email info@rodsandcones.com