Thanks for even more detailed response. Yeah I need to try that eventually. Problem is.. there are a lot of problems.. too tired to get into the details. This sublimation business in LA downtown is tanking and these customers are doing whatever they feel like. Apparently they act like they're my boss's owner because they know without them he would go under.

It's a sad situation and sad to see him scrounging to just keep his business afloat. His wife started working 2 jobs cuz he hasn't brought money home in over a year. Guess we gotta just manage and try and tweek the plate curve as we go.

Thanks again for the explanation

Joe - yeah, something's screwy but then again the boss says sublimation printing is different than other commercial printing.

Tracy - hey~ long time! Yeah I agree, but he has no money. I started a month ago and he already owes me $3000 for paying his electricity bill lol. I'm laughing at him and myself. I realized I shouldn't have done that after not paying me my last paycheck lol

Thanks for the reply guys.  We do strip the ICC profiles from the customers' files, but we have to get the final product to match their colors exactly that come out of their printers.  (We get a sample printout from them that we heat press on a poly fabric - even this causes variation but negligible.)

So from the jpg file I get from them I print from our printer, heat press on fabric and compare it to the customer's sample.  Then I go into photoshop and tweek the curves to try and match exactly.  Then I make the plates and pressman tries to get the colors up to match yet again.  During this process I go back into photoshop and tweek curves and replace certain plates when there's no way to match with ink. 

I guess the problem lies with calibrating the curves.  The $500 guy tweeked the CTP curve using this color reading gadget from the test file printed from our printer.  And our CTP curve is definitely not linear.  I guess that explains why for example cyan darks are too dark and lights are too light on some files and flip flopped on other files. 

Another problem is lot of our customers are using the badly tweeked printer calibration profile in their digital printers.  Adding to that they don't use the same amount of ink as us.  They crank it up like 200% because their customers want bright vibrant colors and there's no way we can go that high from the files they give us.  We have to do it in offset by pouring tons of ink which screws up all the other colors so that I have to bring the colors way down so that it lines up.

SO FRUSTRATING

Anyway thanks for the refresh on where our problem lies.  So in short we're screwed... until we get a linear curve from our printer to match the CTP.  We've been trying to match the CTP to our printer   https://www.b4print.com/Smileys/default/facepalm.png:facepalm:

Good morning~

Coming back to printing after a hiatus I'm amazed at how little I knew about what I was doing. Yet I'm amazed at how little I still don't know and why my boss would call me back.  Anyway I'm in sublimation and I just learned there's something called an ICC.

I think that's what's making our colors come out all wacky because we don't use the embedded profile from our clients' images when proofing on digital printer. And when it goes out to our offset colors are off. Did that make any sense?

We just paid our ink supplier $500 to calibrate a CTP curve to match our offset but it's still off. So I have to go back to the file in Photoshop and tweek curves, burn plates and hope for the best.

My question still is is this normal? Seems for every job I have to tweek the curves a different way, thus no consistency. I'm guessing ICC is the culprit?  It would make life so much easier to have the colors come out the same as the file and eliminate the tweeking part of it!

Sometimes it takes us 3-5 hours on a single job just color matching and production comes to a halt! All the paper, ink and time wasted!

LOL.. you guys make me smile.  First time really smiling since coming back to work here a month ago.

It's been 3 years since I last posted.  My old boss called me and I'm back in this stinking place.  To refresh your memory I'm the guy with an old Lotem CTP posting for help daily.

Good to see you guys again!  I remember Joe, Slappy.. who else... been so long.  Anyway I'm sure I'll start posting again soon!

Glad to see you guys are still active!

Thanks for the supportive words and sentiment.  So I guess there isn't a cap setting in harmony.  Ok.. maybe if I can find work in prepress again I'll be sure to visit, otherwise probably too busy trying to make the dough.  Alright take care guys!

Hi guys, I'm here to say goodbye and came to ask my last question.  Although I wanted to leave this place, my boss beat me to it and fired me.. well, laid me off.  So before I leave here I wanted to help him set up the curve so that life will be easier for him and the press guys here. 

Maybe some of you remember me crying about our 100% magenta images as always being very dull when it comes out from plate press.  I tried cranking up the top portion of Magenta curve in harmony and it won't do a thing.  Everything below about 65-70% changes fine,  but anything over there's no difference in color.

I was wondering is there a cap that you can put in harmony so that colors won't change beyond the cap value?  If so how can I change it?

Ok.. thanks for all your help while I've been here for year and few months.  You guys really helped me out.  I'm still looking for work but it's hard finding anything for me.  I am hoping they call me back from Sprint store for sales rep.

Anyway, take care guys.  Don't drink too much. 

I just talked to the owner of the other place and he says sublimation printing is completely different from regular printing and that there's really no company and no one who can set it right.  He says you need to use at least 50 plates and 50,000 sheets to manually adjust the curves to get it to match and even then need experienced prepress and press man to coordinate and fine tune it.  He was in newspaper printing for 15 years so he has the know how and can't help us because it would be giving away a trade secret. 

In other words we're fucked.  You're right.. I need to get outta here.  Maybe go work for him.

Quote from: Farabomb on August 22, 2016, 09:55:30 AMI still think whomever came and "profiled" your gear needs to come back and do the job right.

I actually met the guy who did it and he explained that for sublimation printing the curves has to be done that way for the ink to go on right or something to that effect.  Like it has to drop a little lower at each color point or something.  I don't know.  Apparently he sets the curves like that for every sublimation printing place they sell ink to and most print places in fashion district in LA buy ink from them.  I need to talk to that guy, owner of the other print place.

Quote from: Joe on August 22, 2016, 07:36:47 AM

Quote from: baker7 on August 19, 2016, 05:20:44 PMSo the only solution is to break into that dude's business and borrow their press curves.  Got it.  Thanks!

Borrowing the press curves would not do you any good unless it is the exact same press and even then it would be iffy.

That's what I was thinking.. but would it come close?  Anything is better than the shit we got going on now.  I'm so sick and tired of adjusting colors for every freaking job.. and this a-hole of a boss blames me for everything now, The fact that nothing matches and everything if f'ed up at this place has completely escaped his mind.  What a f'ing dip shit this guy is. 

So the only solution is to break into that dude's business and borrow their press curves.  Got it.  Thanks!

Hi Tracy, yeah.. well it can print fine on Mutoh using that guy's color profile but the problem is our plate machine is not setup for that profile.. so we can't make any plates that duplicates that.  We can only make plates that uses our wack job mutoh profile.  There lies the problem.  If we can only get our plate machine set up right...

Hi guys, after a huge screaming match, cussing and fighting with my boss... I'm still here cuz I have no where else to go.  Anyways, I figured out our Mutoh profile is the culprit.  Our Mutoh curve is all wacked out.  We have the color profile of our competitor, a big sublimation printing company around here, and their's is beautiful.  And I know it's right cuz I happened to meet this dude at some bar in my neighborhood and he kept insisting he knows me.  Turned out it was a dude my close friend was friends with and I met him 10 years ago while partying and now he's the owner of that company and he has 15 years printing experience from Germany and US.  What are the odds?

Anyway, my question is can we color match the CTP to the Mutoh color profile?  From what some of you guys said, you have to match the Mutoh to the CTP.. but I think if we match it the other way around we'll have this problem solved.  My boss is asking me to get that guy's CTP profile, but would that even work?  I don't even think he'll give it to me cuz we're one of his competitors.

help...

Oh yeah.. one more thing.  Every file I print with this profile come out exactly like the sample from Mutoh, while with our profile I have to spend 30 minutes adjusting all the colors in Photoshop.

Thanks for the warning.. I'll take that too.