Consulting Help

Hello all, If I can be of any help please call me with any questions. I'm a retired, color print consultant from GATF (google me). When working I was amazed how the 'pressroom' was blamed for "bad color". The reason was always the plate curves provided by pre-press. If you get a chance, sneak into the pre-press area and ask if they are providing 4-seperate and distinct plate curves (Y-M-C-K)?
A lot of the earlier RIP's only had one plate curve, that's a problem. The 'secret' to color printing is to make plate curves based on gray balance at standard densities AND using GCR to control the standard variation of the press.
If I can be of any help, please call - remember you can't 'color correct' at press (as some believe) - you can only 'color ruin'! Dan Remaley (412.889.7643)

 

Hey Dan , yes I calibrate each colour to it's own cuvre in conjunction with the other colours using Iso standards.
I use a oris test sheet to print solid densities as recommended by my ink supplier (vanson), then I go up to prepress and borrow the spectrophotometer from the richo , do my readings check tvi, grey balance etc then I input my new readings into the rip and repeat if necessary.
This is a rather simplified account of what I do to achieve consistent print results, it normally takes 3-4 hours to make me happy.
I repeat this procedure every time my boss wants to try different plate or inks.
I also as a printer prefer to do the calibrations for the curve's myself (I don't trust prepress/ graphic artists).

 

Me too, because most of the prepress and designers are just software operators and know nothing about the pressroom.
Same trend in pressroom too as there are many button pushers.