Momentum/ Rampage rip

[LoganBlade]

Current press running a 50% screen about 82% to 84%. Current prepress guy feels 3% of true lin is ok. I might agree if it was 1.5 over 50 or 1.5% bellow but it is 3% above. Now if all was really good and I was linear. And I was printing a 50% at the 82% to 84% gain and wanted to bring down to 72%. Would i just put a tonal curve in that was 10% to 12% pulled down and that would fix it for me? My goal is to get it to the following
K=72%
CMY=68%

Manager and sales rep have pressman and myself running inks well bellow density readings and colors are getting contaminated because manger wants it to be lighter. I keep explaining this but they say like everyone here has said. "We don't have the time." If this is the solution I plan on just doing it and take the chance. I hate not running density to specification.

later

[johnny_jay]

Make a actual curve of roughly where each is printing. Then make 2 desired curves, one for 72 and the other for 68. Then test them on one or two jobs.

We have a press that had no time for a fingerprint but the gains were through the roof. We read the color bars and made a actual curve and then applied the desired curve. We called this our sneakerprint. The only one that knew in the pressroom was the manager. It worked pretty good, we only had to make one minor tweek after a week. We have been running fine for several months.

[LoganBlade]

thanks going to give that a try. will update when I  can implement it with out them knowing.

[Marktonk]

LoganBlade,

Is it possible you put a scale on a job that will be trimmed out later? This would give you the information on the entire curve from highlight to shadow and you could generate a more exact curve from this information. As for not having the time, you will use an existing job so the only initial time spent would be adding the scales to the job.

If you are printing on sheetfed, your gain is too high and needs to be adjusted. What does a 50% read on plate? Is it 53%? If sheetfed and good stock, your gain should be at least 10% lighter. The numbers you want to hit are reasonable targets

The root cause maybe on press but it seems that the time need to troubleshoot will be hard to come by. So a reduce curve will either fix the problem or  be a bandaid until time permits complete troubleshooting.

Regards,

Mark

[LoganBlade]

Bandaid is the fix for now.