Pantone Breakdowns

Discussion in 'Xerox iGen3, iGen4, & iGen5 Digital Presses' started by Stiv, May 4, 2011.

  1. Stiv

    Stiv Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2010
    Messages:
    292
    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    I need to provide a list to our customers of the iGen's Pantone CMYK breakdowns.

    I see where I can print the swatches but how can I get a listing of the CMYK values?
     
  2. ddigen3

    ddigen3 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Dec 2008
    Messages:
    200
    Location:
    Pleasant Hill, California, US
    What DFE are you referring to? I believe the values change depending on the DFE. For instance, our Fiery has a completely different book of values that overwrite the DocuSP's.
     
  3. Stiv

    Stiv Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2010
    Messages:
    292
    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    Free Flow. In the spot editor it has the breakdowns but if I print a swatch book the values do not print. I don't want to sit here forever and write down the CMYK values of every Pantone that was changed specifically for the iGen.

    Well, if that's what it takes then you'll do it. lol
     
  4. ddigen3

    ddigen3 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Dec 2008
    Messages:
    200
    Location:
    Pleasant Hill, California, US
    Maybe you can take a "screen shot" of what's visible & save it as a PDF, then make a multi-paged PDF to print out. It will still probably be a lot of work, but much better than writing down nearly 2000 formulas!
     
  5. Michael4

    Michael4 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2011
    Messages:
    174
    Location:
    Jersey City, NJ (USA)
    You could simply have your customer just pick the swatch or 'pantone' number that they are interested in. Both parties know it's a cmyk equivalent. And you, the printer know the CMYK value of each item.

    It's the prints the squares spot colored anyway. In other words if you were in an abode design application, its as if you printed they job with the pantone swatch selected. Which can be much different than if you converted that same pantone swatch to CMYK or types in the CYMK values in for that pantone.

    The new Fiery and Creo software are programmed to convert pantone ICC profiles and CMYK ICC profiles differently. Every piece of equipment you use (Digital press, offset press, adobe design programs, digital camera, monitors) all use different ICC profiles , the device (digital press in this case) will convert these colors to LAB and then to CYMK....


    It may seem I'm going way off topic... (but a lot of this should be taken into consideration)
    Just have them pick the Pantone swatch.
    Only you and your designers need to know about what value to pick for print.
     
  6. Stiv

    Stiv Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2010
    Messages:
    292
    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    Well that was my thought too. If they spec their PMS into CMYK and use it for type, vector art and raster images they will/could get three different colors depending on the profile(s) I use to RIP their file.
    And going way off topic here, I have to turn off Pantone processing more often these days due to transparency issues.
     
  7. Michael4

    Michael4 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2011
    Messages:
    174
    Location:
    Jersey City, NJ (USA)
    You got it exactly.
    I worried I made little sense, but you got it right on the money.

    It real tricky to promise a color based on cmyk values. It better (but not always possible) to reference a physical sample, whether it be a pantone color swatch or a customers previously printed item. and then use 'Spot-On' in the fiery or Creo to match the color.
     
  8. ddigen3

    ddigen3 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Dec 2008
    Messages:
    200
    Location:
    Pleasant Hill, California, US
    On occasion I resort to using "substitute color" in ColorWise, which replaces the CMYK values the client sets with the ones I know will print out as the right color, often times a SPOT's CMYK values.
     
  9. ddigen3

    ddigen3 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Dec 2008
    Messages:
    200
    Location:
    Pleasant Hill, California, US
    Stiv,

    doing this has helped me work around the transparency issues dealing with SPOT colors too. So instead of setting the colors as SPOT in the original, their left as CMYK, and I use Colorwise Protools to set the CMYK values I want them to change to when printed.
     
  10. Michael4

    Michael4 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2011
    Messages:
    174
    Location:
    Jersey City, NJ (USA)
    Yes, this is what meant also when i mentioned Spot-On. Most of the time I'm using a Canon With a Fiery. You can set the values you want each color print as in Spot-on, then turn 'substitute colors' on in CWS and anything that contains those initial values will be swapped out with your custom color.

    Make sure your output profile in CWS matches the profile in "Spot-on" or whatever equivalent software your using
     
  11. Stiv

    Stiv Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2010
    Messages:
    292
    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    I don't have anything like this in FreeFlow. :(
     
  12. Michael4

    Michael4 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2011
    Messages:
    174
    Location:
    Jersey City, NJ (USA)
    I haven't used FreeFlow =/
    You may have to just work upstream a bit and make your changes at the design end of things.
    Not the end of the world, if you have a good design team they should be able to adjust colors accurately based on your print output
     
  13. igen jim

    igen jim Member

    Joined:
    Jun 2009
    Messages:
    40
    Location:
    Dallas, TX USA
    Stiv
    Xerox makes a Pantone book with call outs. Called Pantone digital chips for Xerox iGen3. I think it's about $800.
    Hope this will help.
    Jim:cool:
     
  14. Stiv

    Stiv Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2010
    Messages:
    292
    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    Here's the info if you are interested.

    On the iGen3/FFPS system, assuming you do not have the ACQS software suite that is provided by Xerox Special Information Systems (XSIS), the Pantone CMYK Tables are static. These tables are simply text files that reside on the hard drive of the FFPS System. If you are familiar with navigating on a Solaris system, they can be found in the /var/spool/XRXnps/resources/color/tables directory on the sytem. There are both CMYK and Lab tables for coated, uncoated and GOEcoated Pantone colors. Whatever you do, you should not try to alter or remove the tables from this location. However, you can copy them out and format them in a way that would be suitable to provide to your customers.



    On the iGen4/FFPS system, the tables are located in the same location, but are not static. When profiling on the FFPS system the user is given the choice to update the Spot color tables if so desired. If they chose to update them, then these files are modified with new CMYK values based on the scan results from the profiling process. If you update your destination profiles from the Color Maintenance Tool (CMT) on the Press Interface, then you are not given an option and the spot color tables are updated. However, at any time you can revert to the default CMYK Spot color values by opening the Spot Color List in the FFPS GUI. If the values have been updated by the profiling process, then a "Revert" button will appear at the bottom of the Spot Color List window.
     
  15. igen jim

    igen jim Member

    Joined:
    Jun 2009
    Messages:
    40
    Location:
    Dallas, TX USA
    NICE work Bud
     
  16. mglouis

    mglouis New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 2011
    Messages:
    2
    Location:
    Arlington, TX
    So... how did this work out? I ask because if you have color management for cmyk to cmyk in your Freeflow then the device values you copied from the filesystems are correlated to how they would appear according to your destination profile. To assign a source profile to these cmyk values should cause color mismatches when reconverted back to destination.

    The designer would have to pre-colormanage the entire document, in addition to the spot colors, and then you could turn off CMS at the rip.

    It seems the easy, yet effective, thing to do would be to submit spot colors to the RIP and let it make the conversions.

    Matt Louis
     
  17. Michael4

    Michael4 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2011
    Messages:
    174
    Location:
    Jersey City, NJ (USA)
    That's what I do.

    (I'm a Fiery user) I let the Fiery match the spot color as best it can on its own (no profile change). And then adjust it accordingly in Fierys "spot-on" and print with "substitute colors" on.
     
  18. Michael4

    Michael4 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2011
    Messages:
    174
    Location:
    Jersey City, NJ (USA)
    As far as In-house design goes, Have your artists work in the widest color gamut available for your machine.
    You'll hit everything in SWOP for sure (which is the designers/Adobe default profile) but why not get that extra color from Gracol6 or 7
     
  19. Stiv

    Stiv Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2010
    Messages:
    292
    Location:
    Michigan, USA
    I sometimes have to turn off Pantone processing due to transparency issues with the PDFs. This kills the Xerox iGen calibrated Pantone CMYK breakdowns and reverts to the profiles that I am using, correct?
    So if I have the client set the spots to the iGen CMYK values, and change the spot to CMYK, then I should be good no matter what, yes or no?
    As far as Gracol 6 or 7, I don't have those profiles in my FreeFlow RIP.
    Am I nuts?
     

  20. Michael4

    Michael4 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2011
    Messages:
    174
    Location:
    Jersey City, NJ (USA)
    My fiery/machine has pre-set formulas for Pantone colors (assuming they are spot colored properly in the document). These values vary slightly from the CMYK values/equivalents , these variations supposedly give you closer matches.

    If you were to remove the spot color values and replace them with CMYK values, my machine would not know its trying to hit a pantone. It will probably be close , but not AS close as if i had spot colored the job. Also if i took the time to match this pantone in the past (and saved it as a substitute color) all that time would go out the window if i changed it to CYMK.

    I'm sure if this is the same for FreeFlow on an IGEN. As for Gracol not being on your RIP, your not nuts. 90% of the time the customer is not using that profile anyway, and if your designers aren't using it, there is no gain from having it in the RIP. Heck , i didn't know much of anything about color profiles until a year or so ago. Canon's senior color analysts in NYC trained me. The man is profound in knowledge of color on these digital machines.
     
Loading...