Different color profiles for different clients

[Greg_Firestone]

Yeah, I feel like I'm back to square one.  Giving it more thought I'm not sure how the color server could remedy this issue..  maybe I'm still confused with our's and new clients' digital printer profiles and our press plate profile.  I don't think anyone uses RGB in the garment industry as CMYK seems to be the standard.

My question about RGB was to help determine what profile you are using.

The problem we're having is mutoh output is very different from Press machine (Akiyama) output for our new customers.  Also their digital sample sheet they give us (which we heatpress onto fabric) is richer and more intense in color than from what we print out on our Mutoh.. (different profile and different ink) of the same Tiff img.

It's not uncommon for one press to have a larger color gamut (range of colors a device can reproduce) than another. Are the jobs printed on each press related or independent? If they are related, you need to take the smaller gamut as use that as your output profile. You won't be maximing the larger color gamut, but you'll be making sure that you convert images to a CMYK that is reproducible on both presses. If the jobs are independent, you can optimize them for each press.

So the profile that you're talking about seems like a universal standard profile..  now that I think about it some more, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think that'll help my situation as I would ultimately need the digital printer profile and ink they used so that it would come out the same on our digital printer.  Also translating the accuracy of changes in colors onto the press plates is the other problem we're having.

If you fingerprint your presses, you can try supplying your new ICC press profile to the customer. This way they will design their output within the color gamut of your device.

Our existing clients' jobs are still dead on accurate even when we make changes to the image (via photoshop) it duplicates it perfectly on both Mutoh and press plates.  For our new customers I just don't understand why making changes to the image files print fine from Mutoh but when we make the plates it's all jacked up.  In such a case would we have to make new plate curve for each of our new clients and use accordingly?  Man that seems like an expensive job.

Something's not right. What profile are the existing client's using when they create jobs for you? What are the color settings in Illustrator or whatever application they are designing the artwork in?

One last thing, before I got here they were on Brisque and the computer it was on broke.  I don't know why they didn't replace it with the same program but the tech we flew in from Ohio replaced it with Prinergy (Harmony) and took with him the hard drive Brisque was on.  Ever since then they started having all sorts of issues with color matching.  From what my boss tells me everything was accurate and the changes to image files would duplicate itself perfectly on the Akiyama.  Never an issue.  He said to get the profile curve and linear curve on the Akiyama sorted out they called in a professional 3 different times. 

I don't know what else to do or what to actually do..  this seems like it's beyond my knowledge and capability.  He wants me to fix it but if a professional color guy can't remedy this what the hell can i do?

There are a lot of variables to deal with. If they changed inks or papers in the press room, that could result in changes in the output. You really should consider having a color consultant come in.

[baker7]

Yeah, I feel like I'm back to square one.  Giving it more thought I'm not sure how the color server could remedy this issue..  maybe I'm still confused with our's and new clients' digital printer profiles and our press plate profile.  I don't think anyone uses RGB in the garment industry as CMYK seems to be the standard.

My question about RGB was to help determine what profile you are using.

The problem we're having is mutoh output is very different from Press machine (Akiyama) output for our new customers.  Also their digital sample sheet they give us (which we heatpress onto fabric) is richer and more intense in color than from what we print out on our Mutoh.. (different profile and different ink) of the same Tiff img.

It's not uncommon for one press to have a larger color gamut (range of colors a device can reproduce) than another. Are the jobs printed on each press related or independent? If they are related, you need to take the smaller gamut as use that as your output profile. You won't be maximing the larger color gamut, but you'll be making sure that you convert images to a CMYK that is reproducible on both presses. If the jobs are independent, you can optimize them for each press.

So the profile that you're talking about seems like a universal standard profile..  now that I think about it some more, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think that'll help my situation as I would ultimately need the digital printer profile and ink they used so that it would come out the same on our digital printer.  Also translating the accuracy of changes in colors onto the press plates is the other problem we're having.

If you fingerprint your presses, you can try supplying your new ICC press profile to the customer. This way they will design their output within the color gamut of your device.

Our existing clients' jobs are still dead on accurate even when we make changes to the image (via photoshop) it duplicates it perfectly on both Mutoh and press plates.  For our new customers I just don't understand why making changes to the image files print fine from Mutoh but when we make the plates it's all jacked up.  In such a case would we have to make new plate curve for each of our new clients and use accordingly?  Man that seems like an expensive job.

Something's not right. What profile are the existing client's using when they create jobs for you? What are the color settings in Illustrator or whatever application they are designing the artwork in?

One last thing, before I got here they were on Brisque and the computer it was on broke.  I don't know why they didn't replace it with the same program but the tech we flew in from Ohio replaced it with Prinergy (Harmony) and took with him the hard drive Brisque was on.  Ever since then they started having all sorts of issues with color matching.  From what my boss tells me everything was accurate and the changes to image files would duplicate itself perfectly on the Akiyama.  Never an issue.  He said to get the profile curve and linear curve on the Akiyama sorted out they called in a professional 3 different times. 

I don't know what else to do or what to actually do..  this seems like it's beyond my knowledge and capability.  He wants me to fix it but if a professional color guy can't remedy this what the hell can i do?

There are a lot of variables to deal with. If they changed inks or papers in the press room, that could result in changes in the output. You really should consider having a color consultant come in.

U.S. Web coated SWOP v2 in Photoshop.  I view this with Edit>Color Settings right? But doesn't this only tell me the settings on my end not the file?  I dunno.. my first printing related job so not sure about these things.  My boss doesn't even know how to turn on a computer so I have no one to ask.

Yeah it seems like a big mess.  For most of our clients the high percentage magentas are weak and low % too high, so to get around this I have to bring all other colors down 10 to 15% and crank up the ink at the press.  If I raise the reds on the image in photoshop we lose definition on the reds.  This seems like we can fudge it on the curve, but for the clients that give us files that have colors that are completely off it's just torture.  Even correcting it with curves in photoshop doesn't work at times.  And once I start separating the image colors and manipulate them individually so it matches on our digital printer, and then we run the big press these changes don't correspond and something completely off prints out.  So we go through like 3 to 4 extra plates on top of the original 4 to match color by running the big press, which is a huge waste of paper and ink. 

So basically we end up making $0, if we're lucky.  Our one compressor that's running from morning to night without pause finally gave out today.  One compressor to run the 6 unit press machine, heat press, paper cutting machine and the CTP machine.  Our pressman still doesn't know how to match colors and won't listen, we got a mentally retarded guy as the press support guy who I have to give rides home everyday who won't stop running his mouth, an old man who comes here every morning and hangs out telling us what to do when no one wants him here including the boss.  Rats the size of cats running around few feet from the shipping bay that introduced some sort of mites that causes itching that doesn't stop.  Not to mention .. let me stop myself, I can go on all day.  A little stressed with this place. 

[baker7]

Call Rick Hatmaker at Chromix and explain the problem. He'll have a color consultant that can solve this.

Thanks but looks like he's out in Seattle.  Same coast but a little north.  Know anyone in Socal?

[Tracy]

Reading thru your post, maybe your brisque was calibrated somewhat and then the change
to prinergy without paying for having the press calibrated to your proofer is the problem.

Your proofer should be close at least to what your getting on press, I would think it shouldn't be that far off.
You want your plates to be accurate if you are not calibrated.
Are your proofs coming from Prinergy with your plates?

actually I went thru something similar, when we had the brisque it was calibrated, now with Fuji I am not
pretty close tho.

I would be curious as to what the color guy says the problem is, since he can't fix it

[Tracy]

How are you printing to the Digital Printers?
Are you mostly using photoshop files?

[baker7]

Does proofer mean that thing with all the colors in graduating shades?  I think they did all that right cuz the professional guy came by 3 different times after switching to prinergy and measured everything like on the plates (I guess this is called fingerproofing?) and did everything on the big press, from what I'm told anyway.

Yeah, photoshop files in jpg onto Wasatch version 7.1 then printing on Mutoh rj900 pro. 

Do you think we should go back to Brisque?  Is that even possible cuz I heard they discontinued it.

[Tracy]

I wrongly guessed that the Mutoh was your proofer (what your making proofs from)
Going back to brisque won't solve your problem and they are discontinued.

So you have Prinergy, do you have a proofer hooked up to it?
Is the Mutoh hooked up with Prinergy?

What kind of printing do you guys do?

[Joe]

Agree with Tracy. It is not clear of your setup (workflow + proofing device + output devices + presses) or even what your final product is.

[baker7]

Sorry, I guess I've been just rambling.  We do sublimation printing for apparel (men's and women's shirts and dresses.)

We got 3 computers.  1st one, PC that is hooked up to Mutoh and I do all our CMYK Photoshop editing on.  Then we move the file over to a Mac, where we convert the jpg to pdf with Illustrator (don't ask me why we do this on 2 different computers, it was like this when I got here.) Then we move the pdf over to the 3rd computer (Server) that has the prinergy where we refine it and send it to CTP (Lotem 800) to make plates.

So I guess we do use the Mutoh as proofer.  But clients don't see this proof.  They only send us a sample digital printed paper (printed on their Mutoh or Epson, which has different color profiles and inks) and the cloth (polyester) to heat press it on.  With the given file we print on our Mutoh which come out wildly different most of the time.  So I use photoshop to make changes and print on Mutoh and heatpress to see.  Sometimes we need to do this over 15 times to get the damn colors to match. *edited

Then when I think it's right on or pretty damn close, I make the 4 cmyk plates.  Then give it to our pressman and he tries to bring up the colors and it comes out looking totally different.  So he brings up one color to match, then I have to go back to Photoshop and manipulate the colors by comparing the client's sample and the one that came out of the big press machine (Akiyama) and make new plates so that we can get the final product for approval.

I have no idea how most other places do things for books and calendars and stuff, cuz this is my first job ever doing any kind of printing.

Hope that clarifies how we run it here.

[Ear]

We got 3 computers.  1st one, PC that is hooked up to Mutoh and I do all our CMYK Photoshop editing on.  Then we move the file over to a Mac, where we convert the jpg to pdf with Illustrator (don't ask me why we do this on 2 different computers, it was like this when I got here.) Then we move the pdf over to the 3rd computer (Server) that has the prinergy where we refine it and send it to CTP (Lotem 800) to make plates.

[baker7]

That's what I said..
but once you look at our computers it may make a bit of sense.  The first computer's a Intel 2 Duo 2.93 GHz and the Mac is a PowerPC G5.  I had to upgrade / max out the memory on both computers and flash update the PC just so that they don't stall for 5 minutes every time I open an application. 

Nothing works here.  CTP had all kinds of issues, and still do from time to time even after I fixed most of it.  You guys helped me to use Prinergy correctly and our big press machine is another mess.  Never registers, always shifting during job.  Rollers are all f'ed up.  creates horizontal yellow lines on all light press jobs.  Compressor on it's last legs.  Even our regular paper printer doesn't work.  After every single page print I have to turn it off and back on.  All I can do is laugh... seriously..

[Joe]

Buy a lottery ticket because your chance of winning is a lot better than your chance of getting that mess fixed.

Seriously though...What kind of file is the customer supplying you with. Is there any kind of page layout software being used like InDesign or Quark? No, Photoshop and Illustrator are not page layout apps!

[baker7]

Buy a lottery ticket because your chance of winning is a lot better than your chance of getting that mess fixed.

Seriously though...What kind of file is the customer supplying you with. Is there any kind of page layout software being used like InDesign or Quark? No, Photoshop and Illustrator are not page layout apps!

It's just illustrator.  All our files are 28 x 40 single prints so there's no need for page layout app.

[Joe]

So your customer sends you 28x40 jpegs? That is what you start with. Does the customer have a color profile embedded in that image?

[Ear]

You are having Photoshop render it. Layout or not, InDesign or Illustrator... if it starts as a jpeg, it's already rendered (and lossy), so it's all downhill from there. Just sayin'..