Thread: CMYK work on Single Colour Press

ive only ever run a single colour press and have done loads of full colour work.
gloss or matt coated not a problem, full colour on a standard stock causes problems as the paper tends to stretch more, and ive always printed cyan - magenta- yellow then black, but use a dense black instead of the process one, to me it looks nicer

hi vzd180i. sorry some confusion. i dont have a QM. Im in Cape Town.

Cybershafs - Sorry my bad thought about one thing and wrote another

Originally Posted by Quinton South Africa

Bouncing the sheet "Watch the registration on the tale" make sure your lay system is set correctly and that your operator keeps a eye on the register. I would run 30 sheets then reload the same 30 sheets to make sure that you registration is perfect. Then when you change colours DO NOT ADJUST the feeder at all to ensure that you will register all 4 colours.

Quinton - what grammage sheets do you prefer for F/C jobbing on the QM? and if you say bouncing does this include the middle blowers position to the sheet?

thx

hey guys more questions. Only this is about the vintage gretag d142 densitometer im using. ok first thing is that i got a calibration card for it. on it was readings for absolute white and for paper white. I calibrated to absolute white according to the calibration instruction i got. Was this correct or should i have done paper white calibration.

Anyway, here comes the real question. on the densitometer are modes for density and paper. Do i first measure the paper, then press the paper button to read 0.00. and then measure the colour. i feel like im missing something.

Its been a long time since I used a gretag, but you dont need to measure the paper each time prior to using it unless you switch paper stock from a gloss to a dull for example. However even if you forget to measure the paper after switching stock, the difference in the density reading wouldnt be all the much anyways.

Been a long time since I have printed on a single colour machine, but I used to do cyan, yellow, magenta and black last, purely because it was less time washing up and it only meant taking the dampers out once or at most twice, but I would think you would be using bareback dampers now.
Colour sequence depends greatly on the job you are doing.
Always try to complete the job in the day if possible, otherwise the ink will take a along time to dry and could stretch overnight. I used to add driers to the last colour due to it trying to dry into 3 layers of dry ink

It really isn't worth your time. You can farm the job out and make more money. Time is money. You said you want to experiment, but when you buy your multi color press it's going to be a totally different mind set. You'll be stream lining your work with direct to plate. You'll be making ready a 4 color job in less than 30 minutes without all the bells and whistles on the press.

Good Luck,

jtdoonz

Originally Posted by johnboy

Been a long time since I have printed on a single colour machine, but I used to do cyan, yellow, magenta and black last, purely because it was less time washing up and it only meant taking the dampers out once or at most twice, but I would think you would be using bareback dampers now.
Colour sequence depends greatly on the job you are doing.
Always try to complete the job in the day if possible, otherwise the ink will take a along time to dry and could stretch overnight. I used to add driers to the last colour due to it trying to dry into 3 layers of dry ink

Same with me. The reason I did that order was because Yellow is quite hard to see what is happening by it's self. ie. hickies, filling in etc. If you have the cyan down first, it makes all the difference. I advise running black last when doing single passes, partly because it is very easy to over do the black. I run large multi-colour presses now days with black down first, but even then I still sometimes run the black on the low side if the picture is rather dark or I want certain details to stand out.

Keep an eye on the green and reds against your proof when doing single passes. Thats the best way of getting an idea how the image is building up.

In my opinion sometimes it's even better to print full-colour on a one colour press than on a 4 colour. Because each run has time to dry there is not much blending of process colours. I mostly did C,Y, M, K because starting with C you can detect dampening problems in Y and M as third run makes you able to steer the overall colour. It's very important to check register in the first run. Just pass a few sheet two times through. Adjust density on paper ( uncoated 1.20, 1.00, 1.20, 1.35 coated stock 1.30, 1.10, 1.35, 1.65 is sensible). Don't start with to much spray powder as this shows in later runs. Good luck!