most peculiar mamma

[beermonster]

hello denizens of the prepress world :grin: (and desighners i guess :laugh:)

a most bizarre thing happened yesterday to a layout - i don't know if it was a rip thing, and indy thing or a format thing

osx10.4.11 mac g5, 3.5 giggles of rameroos, CS3, xitron navigator rip

carton design came in as a pdf - created by cs4 - we preflight - all is fine, proofed, approved and life is good.

so - drop pdf into indesign, drop one up cutter guide over the top, drop multi up cutter over that, step one up with cutter into position - simples

cutter guide is set to overprint. artwork is ok for using indesign's trapping, so we applied our usual 0.2 trap and assigned it - again easy. ripped and all was good - except it wasn't

parts of the cutter can be a dashed line (to show carton creases for example), and indesign has managed in some bizarre adobe way to make the overprinting <spot colour> cutter guide go mental

see if ya keep up - the guide is set to overprint ok - its a dashed line - a black box and a cream box butt up down the crease line - so overprint cutter = NO knockouts

what indy did was this - down the hard edge of the black/cream it honoured the overprint - so NO white k/o's - BUT it knocked back the black so the edge of the black had the dashes of the cutter "cut" out of them - so it honoured the overprint but somehow screwed the black up

it appeared in several places on the sheet. the pdf is perfect, the layout is perfect, the cutter is perfect - the job should fly

deleted cutter, re-ripped and life was good again

i think it was a case of a cs4 pdf being shoved thru a postscript rip - thats what i told the "bosses" - scared em senseless and now gotta get pricing for appe rip, macs, cs4, all manner of stuff

[Joe]

hello denizens of the prepress world :grin: (and desighners i guess :laugh:)

a most bizarre thing happened yesterday to a layout - i don't know if it was a rip thing, and indy thing or a format thing

osx10.4.11 mac g5, 3.5 giggles of rameroos, CS3, xitron navigator rip

carton design came in as a pdf - created by cs4 - we preflight - all is fine, proofed, approved and life is good.

so - drop pdf into indesign, drop one up cutter guide over the top, drop multi up cutter over that, step one up with cutter into position - simples

cutter guide is set to overprint. artwork is ok for using indesign's trapping, so we applied our usual 0.2 trap and assigned it - again easy. ripped and all was good - except it wasn't

parts of the cutter can be a dashed line (to show carton creases for example), and indesign has managed in some bizarre adobe way to make the overprinting <spot colour> cutter guide go mental

see if ya keep up - the guide is set to overprint ok - its a dashed line - a black box and a cream box butt up down the crease line - so overprint cutter = NO knockouts

what indy did was this - down the hard edge of the black/cream it honoured the overprint - so NO white k/o's - BUT it knocked back the black so the edge of the black had the dashes of the cutter "cut" out of them - so it honoured the overprint but somehow screwed the black up

it appeared in several places on the sheet. the pdf is perfect, the layout is perfect, the cutter is perfect - the job should fly

deleted cutter, re-ripped and life was good again

i think it was a case of a cs4 pdf being shoved thru a postscript rip - thats what i told the "bosses" - scared em senseless and now gotta get pricing for appe rip, macs, cs4, all manner of stuff

And I would agree with that. I know a lot of people don't want to face the music that postscript is dead but CS4 is just not built for postscript and if it's not dead it's on life support in my opinion.

[beermonster]

i totally agree joe - so - which appe should i punt for.....thats the next problem - am leaning towards apogee

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

Beer, I am wondering if the black from the original PDF was set up correctly. As in, in ID Prefs, there is a setting for blacks. Out of the box, ID sets blacks to view and output as Rich Blacks. I change it over to view and output blacks Accurately.

It sounds like InDesign was making a cutback black for the overprinting Die. Have you tried straight export from InDesign? If you do, you can set the ink properties in the set-up. I set all my OPs to Transparent with a value of 5 for Ink Opacity. I may be reading you wrong. Can I get a copy of both files? The OG PDF, and the screwed up one?

Another thing... I have seen problems with CS4 files to CS3. Interchange or placed PDFs. It's a wacky thing for sure... but I don't believe it has anything to do with your RIP being APPE or not.

[beermonster]

hi killer dood  :grin:

yeah i'm set up with correct blacks thingymajig already

there's no good and bad pdf here - the pdf is absolutely fine (the one up stepped in the layout) - i've never had an issue with the cutters ever ever, and the file is prepped in the same way as always - it is perfect. the issue arose after the layout was ripped - but removing the cutter and re-reeeeeping solved it

files on another mac - and i cant be arsed mate :laugh:

how do you set your op's to transparent - sounds daft but tell me anyhoo - humour me if you will....

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

What it be my UK Cohort... :wink:

Export a file to PDF. under the "Output" tab, go to "Ink Manager."

In there you can remap colors, set ink opacities and all kinds of shit.

[beermonster]

oh gotcha - well we dont export to pdf - its already a pdf, we step it and rip direct from app (indy) - even if ya export it it will still be fine - its the postscript generated or the rips interpretation of the cs4 file - imho master

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

Could be. I would be interested in seeing the original file and the settings used from the original CS4 file. Oh well. You got it working right?

[Joe]

i totally agree joe - so - which appe should i punt for.....thats the next problem - am leaning towards apogee

As a new Prinergy user I can definitely recommend it. I love the thing. We looked at Apogee as well but it was considerably more expensive. I think Prinergy and Apogee are on par feature wise but of course they both tell you theirs are the best. We don't do any packaging but Kodak showed us some of their packaging tools and they looked great. They also have a plugin that allows you to open the refined PDF into Illustrator and edit to your hearts content. :kiss:

I was also impressed by Dalim but they don't have a RIP on the end for screening. You have to get a separate Harlequin RIP for that.

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

I use Apogee, never used Prinergy. I would like to see how they compare. Apogee has a lot of workarounds for the Operator. I have had some pretty funky shit happen on occasion, and we get this intermittent lagging copying speeds to Hot Folders. On the whole though, it is fairly easy to use and is pretty stable.

[beermonster]

yeah got the pdf working - just a wierd trippy kinda problem - but prepress dog (anagram of god) that i am <in my warped mind> i got it runnin

joe - what was that plug in for pdf's to illy - now i'm interested in that, since i'm possibly upgrading to new intel macs and pdf tuner prolly isnt gonna run on that so need new pdf editing - remember i often have to take a pdf and make it's shape into some complete other carton, so just "fixing" isnt up to it - we gotta be able to take apart, reassemble with new cutters n stuff - so getting some shit pdf back into illy without adobeys screwing it will be good :grin:

[Joe]

yeah got the pdf working - just a wierd trippy kinda problem - but prepress dog (anagram of god) that i am <in my warped mind> i got it runnin

joe - what was that plug in for pdf's to illy - now i'm interested in that, since i'm possibly upgrading to new intel macs and pdf tuner prolly isnt gonna run on that so need new pdf editing - remember i often have to take a pdf and make it's shape into some complete other carton, so just "fixing" isnt up to it - we gotta be able to take apart, reassemble with new cutters n stuff - so getting some shit pdf back into illy without adobeys screwing it will be good :grin:

It's a Prinergy option. born2print had posted a video link of it somewhere. Lemme see if I can find it.

[beermonster]

you guys are geniuseseses - or geeneei - or geneeaa - what is a collection of clever chaps?

[DigitalCrapShoveler]

A Circle Jerk.

[Joe]

Here is a YouTube of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8INqz_jLfRU

And a couple of articles:

http://www.graphicrepro.net/asp/news_long.asp?nid=14043

http://graphics.kodak.com/AU/en/About_GCG/News/2009/090811a.htm