Versacamm and Colour Profiles and Photoshop

[Ian Bingham]

Correct me If Im wrong, but I thought the profiles are for the media not the software?

Ian

[Mark Nihotte]

quote Ian Bingham:

Correct me If Im wrong, but I thought the profiles are for the media not the software?

Ian

Yep – separate profile for each media and at each printing resolution – best done by a specialist at $50+ a pop…and a waste of time unless the designer has all of his equipment fully calibrated as well

[Jason Davies]

I am confused now, yep we have profiles for different media but how can you transfer these to the designer as they are specifically written for the versacamm, for instance;

My client wants all their printing to be done on Metamark poster paper, I have the versacamm profile but I cannot give this to my designer to use so I can he clibrate to this profile?

Jason

[Mark Nihotte]

Hi Jason

read this link and it may clear up some confusion

http://www.photoshopforphotographers.co … manage.pdf

[Jason Davies]

Thanks Mark, so if I tell the designer that we are using US Prepress default then we should all have the same output??

Thanks

Jas

[Mark Nihotte]

HI Jason

Unfortunately, you are entering a large and very dark tunnel with no end. The answer is maybe…but probably not. Your graphics designer should supply you with a swatch pattern file which you print and that print has to be calibrated to his gear. We have one designer here who is extremely pedantic about his outputs (we do the prints for him to go into the gallery and car museum for WOW … check out this link http://www.wowcars.co.nz/index.html ) and we have all come to the conclusion that a small test print gives them a starter to tweak from…many designers look for the quality and vibrancy that a water based inkjet can give, but our ecosol and solvent printers have a much smaller colour gamut. If your designer is looking for a more vibrant print, try changing form US prepress to US Max or Japan Max (a dropdown at the bottom of the Quality settings page in versaworks – I think ..I’m not at work) then do a small test print again – you’ll be amazed at the vibrancy of the blues and reds.

There are heaps of tweaks within Versaworks, so when you do change from your default settings MAKE SURE YOU WRITE THEM DOWN in a note book with the date and the job/file .. cause you’ll never remember if you have to repeat, and its a good prompt when trying to remember how you achieved an particular effect. For example, I have a customer whose logos blue background colour is matched EXACTLY using the Japan max setting, but printing in draft mode …printing in medium or fine gives a totally different blue

Good luck 😮

[Ian Bingham]

Have you noticed too, that when you export in different formats, PDF or EPS or JPEG they all print totally different colours with the same settings, we have swatches printed in all different formats
Ian

[Mark Nihotte]

Hi Ian

Sure have – hardly ever use EPS now as that format adds too much black and dulls down the result. Have been getting interesting results using white vinyls with a bluish or greyish tint as opposed to the ‘white’ white when printing lighter toned prints.

[Ian Bingham]

so whats your preferred send file?

Use JPEG a lot, but find it hard to get a true black with it

Ian

[Mark Nihotte]

mainly use PDF Ian – to get a blacker black (spot colour) we add 20% cyan and/or magenta to 100% black – and tend to use jpeg if it just a picture only 🙂

[Ian Bingham]

Can export to PDF in Corel?

If not what would be similar?

Ian

[Mark Nihotte]

quote Ian Bingham:

Can export to PDF in Corel?

Mostly use Corel (we are on X3…’file/publish to PDF…’) and we have trained other graphic artists and signiies that don’t have printers to send files as PDFs. Our main sign program is Graphx advantage…but haven’t upgraded from ver 6.2…so its a dinasaur when it comes to colour or print work. – we used to create in GA and if the job justified a colour proof, export to corel to be coloured…but as time has gone by we have discovered that corel is an amazingly powerful program that does everything that GA, Flexi, Signlab etc does…we now use corel to design and export back to GA for any cut only parts..the rest is straight into PDF and printed. (still use GA only for any work that is cut only).

Illustrator creates nice PDFs too, but havent spent enough time on it to justify using it, same for freehand.

[Ian Bingham]

Mark

Dont want to hijack this thread, but one last question, or can anyone else help, when exporting to PDF in x3, is it possible to export the selected items not the page, yes i have checked the selection box and it still wants the page
Ian

PDF seems a lot better quality from the tests I have done this morning

[Ian Bingham]

Mark

Dont want to hijack this thread, but one last question, or can anyone else help, when exporting to PDF in x3, is it possible to export the selected items not the page, yes i have checked the selection box and it still wants the page
Ian

PDF seems a lot better quality from the tests I have done this morning

[Mark Nihotte]

Hi Ian – no, unfortunately X3 exports the page sooo…. what we do is save the corel file and then go ‘file/layout/page setup’ and change the page size to what it needs to be (whether thats the correct size or a percentage of it)

Then select whatever you are printing and ‘group’ it – press ‘P’ (this centres the selection onto the page if you haven’t discovered that already)

Then resize if necessary (remember that large files will take ages to RIP so it pays to resample bitmaps to as low as 72 DPI – even thought they may be 600 or more in your file – you won’t see any change in the final out put from the printer) and go ‘file/publish to PDF’ …and Bob’s your Auntie!! – Very important to ensure what you are printing is actually selected when you publish to PDF or you will be publishing a blank page.

Another tip is if you are diecutting then allow an xtra couple of mm to the page size to make sure you don’t have one or more sides missed – there are settings in Versaworks to correct this (I sorted that years ago but can’t for the life of me remember how I did it now)

[Ian Bingham]

cheers,
just printed and EPS Chart and a PDF Chart, Much the same
Ian

[Mark Nihotte]

Ian

did you print versaworks own colour cahert of a corel one?

[Mark Nihotte]

Ian

did you print versaworks own colour chart or a corel one? (?)

[Ian Bingham]

corel one

[Mark Nihotte]

Hi Ian

Versaworks has one embedded in it from Roland – it is superb and unlike the corel ones (and some others) when you pick a colour – thats the colour it prints…not two or ten shades to the left or right. I wll start a thread in the next day or so explaining how to print it and how to transfer the CPL file into Corel from versaworks and then open it as a palette for everyday use. We have a few sets printed for particular profiles and media combos, but for 90% of what we do, we just use the one we printed out for our main profile in medium (720×720) mode. We printed each page A4 size and stuck them on corflute so we can keep them in a box and take them out onto job sites when colour matching is needed.