Howdy - we are in line for a 2011 or 2013 Komori GL540. An accident in the plant with a blanket coming loose got us into an insurance replacement for our old Komori L640 press. Cool Beans!!!
Anybody with experience with the calibration scanning systems? We can have either the scanner that scans just the color bar or a scanner that scans the entire sheet.
Pros and cons of either?
Thanks for any input.

Oklahoma Folding Carton (OFC) is the only locally owned folding carton plant in Oklahoma, competing with the big boys but prefer to fill the void left for smaller orders and a more personalized experience. We are in need of an experienced Prepress person, with a vision to the future, to replace the retiring Prepress Grandpa. This is not a training position. You will be responsible for file preparation to plate and print on a Komori L640 6 color press. Working knowledge of offset printing and Adobe Illustrator and the Creative applications are a must. Knowledge of Harlequin/Navigator RIP is not required but helpful. Must be able to manage your time. Employing approx 20-25 people, mostly in the production plant, the office staff is small and the Prepress position is a one-person job. 40 hour work week. OFC offers a competitive wage, vacation and group insurance. Only qualified applicants please. Our website has not been updated in a couple of years so don't judge our company based on the website (I haven't had the time to update the site - something else that I do!).
Send applications and or questions to:
prepress@okfoldingcarton.com

I just got a job in for some packaging using jfif files in the layout. Anybody with any experience with jfif? 35 years in the biz and this is a new one on me.

Howdy!
I've been reading previous posts and threads about how slow the Epson proofers are compared to the Canons. But Xitron Navigator pushes the Epson proofers, not even mentioning other brands. For that reason I'm strongly looking at the Epson SureColor P9000 Commercial Edition. I'd like to run stock that we will eventually print on - 16-28pt SBS, SSNB, C1S, etc. for folding cartons.
Have things gotten any better for Epson?
Any input is appreciated.

It's been a long time coming but in part due to my retiring soon, the boss agreed to an new Harlequin v13 in a Dell Optiplex 3040MT with Core i5-7500. Got the in RIP trap option also. Life will be so much simpler in a months time!! 
The only snag I see is that we have an HP DesignJet Z6 and I don't think it's supported through the RIP. I'd prefer an EPSON.

Getting a new PC station set up for hopefully my Prepess replacement. I've never dealt with font managers on a PC. What is the program of choice? I've been a Suitcase user forever on my Macs.
Thanks!

The boss wants another person in Prepress. I have to buy a new PC and subscribe to Adobe, basically get it to a usable computer.
What PC do y'all have? Dell, HP? 1tb, i7...
I have to get it today or tomorrow to have online next week.
Not really the way I want to do it but this will help pave my way to retirement next year.
Thanks all!

Embarrassing but...
Been in prepress for 35 years and have not really had a good education on what strike through is. We have a job going to an outside printer for spot UV. It will have a dull or soft touch coating with gloss spot UV. The printer is asking if we want it as a strike-thru.
Educate me please!

I have a client file that was built entirely in InDesign with placed graphics. I have a dieline from Illustrator and want to paste the design into the dieline ad do it in InDesign. I have copied the dieline from Illustrator and pasted into InDesign (probably the only time I've ever copied from one program to the other). I have tried copying or cutting everything from the page to paste into the dieline. I've seen this work before and I think it had something to do with how the Illustrator path was copied from Illustrator.

This should work, correct?
Help!

I never thought PNG files would become a part of 4 color printing but I'm seeing more all the time. Are they reliable for separations?

Hey all - we have a Windows 7 box sitting next to our XP RIP station doing nothing but collecting emails. I'd like to migrate Navigator from the XP to the Windows 7 machine. Because the Xitron ArborSB PCI Imager Interface card is PCI, SIMPLE logic says the W7 box has PCI and I should be able to remove from the XP and install into the W7 box. But there is no such thing as SIMPLE logic here. Anybody with any thoughts on this? I'd probably be looking for another job if putting the card into the W7 blows it up!
I mean, we're okay with the way it's running on the XP, we're a very bust shop but not experiencing a bottle neck at plate making. But it WOULD be nice to speed up the ripping process.
Thanks!

Hi all - I have been using an HP Z3200ps Photo 44" for the past 5 years as my proofing printer. I've been really happy with the 4 color process as well as the Pantone spot colors. It's time to move on and move up and the model I'm looking at is the HP Z6 44". My salesman also wants me to look at the Canon Pro 4000S. He says the colors on the Canon are more vivid but vivid is for posters, not proofing. My gut choice is sticking with HP just because I've always been able to get good 4 color process proofs for customer approval.
Anybody have either of these or have an opinion on either?
Thanks!

Hey all -
We have a couple of small presses in back that we print stationary, NCR, envelopes - small 1 and 2 color print shop stuff. The plant that I was with some years back had halftone screen overlays for burning to film to created the halftone but we don't have that here. I'm trying to find the best (maybe not easiest) method for creating a flat halftone - 20% - 40% - 60% (not a gradient) in Illustrator or Photoshop. I'm finding there are plug ins like Phantasm that can do the trick but I got to wondering. If I run a file through the RIP software with output file as pdf or tiff that saves to a file, will it not generate a halftone for me?

Hope someone has some insight into this - at least the topic seems to draw attention!
Oklahoma recently passed a law permitting medical marijuana dispensaries as approved by doctors. Out business is being inundated with new businesses and out of state business moving into Oklahoma with packaging designs and so many are looking for packaging that holds cigarettes and a compartment for matches. Along the side of the pack is a striker for matches. Anybody have insight into design and printing with this type of material? Can it be applied on press? Is it put on by adhesive?

Hey all -
We just put in a Ricoh Pro C5200S with a Fiery rip in front. I know, it's a big copy machine. But the colors are OUTSTANDING and the speed is very nice. It takes up to 18 point, which is great for short run folding cartons.
I have an InDesign file that has a layered 4 color PSD image with transparency, laying on top of a Cool Gray 11 background. The image has an ever so slight bounding box around it and I'm not sure what the heck to do. Trying to find help from Fiery support isn't easy to come by and my next step after this is contacting Ricoh.
I'm on Mac Indesign CC 2017, Fiery E24-B. None of this is of much help I guess.
Maybe I need to add the spot color to the PSD file? That's slightly above my knowledge skills!!
Thanks in advance for any direction.

I've been doing some testing to speed things up in the old rip and I came up with much faster ripping with a separated PS file from InDesign and dropping THAT into the Navigator rip for plates. In the Roam window I compared the Cyan plate from a ps file ripped on my Mac, laying it down on a ripped file from Navigator and saw no difference. In a fraction of the time. Instead of moving a 20mb file across the network for it to rip 45 minutes, I moved a 100mb file across the network and it took only 2 minutes to rip. I made sure to change my screen angles in InDesign to reflect the same angles in the rip.

Is there something glaringly wrong with doing it this way? I do the layout in InDesign to the sheet size, add my own side guides, reg marks, colorbar - all the rip is doing is translating the file to plate.

Hello -
I just added memory to our XP that runs the Xitron Navigator 8 (yes, .
I took the pc from 2 gigs 2 8 and thought files should rip through the rip. Not a lot of change so I changed a couple of the memory settings and now Navigator warns
"insufficient Memory to boot up"
Memory Required: 10112 kb   
Memory Available 3139116 kb

In the Navigator window in the background, I see this:
Warning: Memory available for rip exceeds the 2047 MB process address space limit. Not all available ram can be used. Memory available for a rip reduced to fit.

How do I get the stinking thing to boot-up?

We are finally having to spring for a sample table of our own. The cutting table is a Zünd that we are purchasing from Hobby Lobby. It is a production table that is right now used for cutting picture frame matte board. They have 11 of them and are letting one go. We are then going for ArtiosCad software on the front end. My dilemma is that I will no doubt be the main operator. And being a true Mac person, am finding it difficult to put a PC on the front end. Artios will run on a Mac that can support VMWare. Seems my MacPro is the ONLY ONE from the 2012 class with a processor that cannot run the software.
Any thoughts on running a newer (NOT new) Mac with VMWare Windows emulator?
Should I just give in and let the PC through the door to run the system?
Thanks

We have a dog food package that previously had UV coating over the 4 color image that wraps in a 3 inch band around the box. The rest of the box is coated with soft-touch. UV did nothing for the image except add cost. The client has given the green light to use a gloss coating instead of the UV, along with the soft touch. Our 6 color Komori is only running with 5 good units. We generally use an aqueous coating which requires the pressroom to cut a blanket. I wish they'd move to another type of gloss coating that I can set a separation for and then burn a plate. Stock is 22pt.
How would YOU run a 4 color job with 2 coatings? If we got the 6th unit up to snuff, how do we run both coatings at once. Would Strike through work?
Remember, I'm the PREPRESS guy. I can suggest till I'm PMS 286 in the face. But I need some backing from experienced pressmen.
Thanks for any input -

Hey all -
I have an older Mac running Acrobat 9 Pro and Pitstop 10. I know. Old stuff but we can't afford the newer versions. Don't beat me up!
I have a 4 color, ready to rip PDF that I'd like to remove 10% Magenta across the sheet. Is there a way to do this in Pitstop?
It's going to a Harlequin rip and the guy burning plates can probably do that on the rip end but just wondering if Pitstop can do that.
Thanks!