Ok. I'm a total newbie that got hired by a sublimation company with a Lotem 800, Mutoh digital printer and harmony prinergy workflow that are all out of sync. When I match colors from sample to Mutoh, then make plates most of the colors are off. And when I make adjustments to the curve in Harmony a lot of the time it's inconsistent and a lot of the time there's no change.
To further complicate the issue I don't know what I'm doing!! I have an art background but this is first time doing prepress Photoshop manipulation. I've been resorting to making individual layers for colors that need adjusting using Channel Mixer. I know I should probably be using Curves to adjust the colors but other colors and tones get affected, for example if I raise the dark red tone the medium tone get raised slightly. Is there a specific way I need to manipulate the curves?
Also we have one client that uses very heavy ink in their Mutoh printer so instead of a usual color shift between our printer and their's, the image is totally different, for example all the colors are off in the opposite direction (dark yellow is too dark, lighter yellow is too light, medium value is too dark or light) and gradients are a nightmare. For one job I had made 80 layer separation for each individual colors and shades of each color.
The owner is going crazy cuz it's taking so long to do a single job and he's wasting so much plates, paper and ink, and the look in his eyes sometimes... :strangle: Harmony curve matching is a whole another issue, but I need to figure Photoshop out first!! Please hep meh..
Was this an existing company or is everything brand new? The issue that I am seeing is you need to chase the press, not the digital copier. You need to fingerprint the press, make a curve to make the digital copier match what you can produce on press. That's why I asked if all the equipment was new.
If it's how they have been doing things I may have figured out why the guy before you left.
One thing that could help, especially with that specific customer is to pin down what ICC profile is being used in your RIP. To take one variable out, make sure that is consitent throughout the process, from Photoshop to proofers to the RIP.
Do you have any type of hardward to measure color upon output? Or anything to measure dots on the plates? The guess and check method will only get you so far...
Are you working in RGB in photoshop?
The conversion could change colors, why are you working in photoshop?
The files are already in photoshop?
Not much to add over what the other have said except it sounds like a complete mess.
not much to add other than, "RUN!!!!!"
If you can't run, walk away briskly.
seriously.
edit to be helpful
match your digital presses to your offset.
match your proofing to your offset.
?
Profit!
Is this why he's being so nice to me? lol oh well.. nowhere to run anyhow. I work in garment industry so I guess Photoshop is necessary? We get jpg files and sample to match color. No the machines aren't new, but the previous workflow they used was Brisque which never had color match problem, but it had some issues so they flew a guy in from Ohio and he replaced it with Harmony. Ever since then problems started to happen, colors are always off, our Lotem 800 started having all sorts of funky issues like auto punch stopped working, drum never initialized, now we have to do everything manually. We used to rotate the drum by hand by opening the rear hood each time we'd print a plate but it started working by press of a button. The plates jam like 30 percent of the time so it's a slow process to get a job done apart from all the other problems. I think he paid this guy like $25+ grand to come here 3 times to work on issues and he never fixed them. This guy even took the internals from the old computer back with him... which sounds really odd. This all happened before I got here and there have been 3 other guys who had this job before me.
Anyhow it is a mess and the boss wants to go back to Brisque but says there aren't any techs in Socal, which I find hard to believe. Anyway thanks for the responding!
Oh yeah, we use CMYK. Oh, and the only ICC profile in Wasatch I can find says: Contains Embedded ICC Profile - Not Active. Would this be an issue?
Get that guy that installed hew hardware and broke everything back in and make him fix his problem. He installed a new workflow and screwed everything up. I've gone through workflow transitions (AGFA to Kodak) and while seamless isn't the word I'd use we were able to continue on our merry way without much issue. If your machines were matched before him, they should match after the new equipment goes in.
agreed, He should of left the shop in a working order.
something is definitely wrong
Trust me that guy isn't coming back...
OK so you have Prinergy. Is it CONNECT or EVO? Harmony is a calibration tool that gets installed when they install Prinergy. Prinergy also has ColorFlow that will eventually replace Harmony but that is a whole other thread. Stick with Harmony for now. I think you need to go back to the basics. First output a plate with a calibration scale on it. Do not use any plate or print (calibration) curve to output this plate. Read the dot percentages on the scale from that plate. A linear plate will give a reading that matches what is in the scale. +- 1% in the highlight, +- 2% in the midtone, +- 3% in the shadow end. If it is not linear you will need to go into Harmony and create a plate curve and enter the reading you got from the plate that you output. Save that plate profile. Now output the same plate again only this time apply the Plate curve that you created. Read the plate. It should now be linear.
One note about Harmony curves that you create. Modifying an existing one is an exercise in futility as Prinergy will not usually show you the changes that you made. I've found it best instead of modifying an existing curve to just create a new one.
So now your plate is linear. Output a set of plates with good subject material to judge the quality. Somewhere in your Prinergy install they should have left you some calibration material and it is best to use that kind of thing but whatever. Anything would be better than your current system. The idea here is to put those plates on press and have the pressmen bring them up to color and then read the printouts on a densitometer and see where you are at. Most likely you will some some dot gain on the press sheet. The general rule is that you will see more for uncoated stock and less for coated stock. You will now need to go back into Harmony and create a Print Curve (Calibration) to compensate for dot gain. You'll probably need to get really familiar with the Harmony documentation. Once you have that calibration curve created and applied output the same set of plates and have them put them on the press and run it up to color again. Voila! Perfection on the press right?
Now the next thing you will need to do is calibrate the printer to match the press. Get back to us after you get this far.
Oh, I'm aware you will probably never see him again. At least it gives the boss something to get pissed at.
Yes, we have EVO. Man that sounds like a foreign language but I need to figure it out and learn it. Any Harmony documentation available somewhere? I tried searching for it on the net but didn't get very far, and we don't have any manuals here.
Yeah that guy's been dicking the boss around all this time. We tried calling him many times and it usually takes him 3 weeks to return a phone call. One thing he did explain which may or may not be of some value is to select a modified curve from Harmony on Prinergy EVO client process viewer. He told us to press Configure--> Process Templates, then select the Output from PDF that we use and expand Calibration & Screening and in Print Curve (Calibration) select the curve made (derived) in Harmony from drop down menu. Save then restart the Prinergy EVO Administrator.
This seems to work but then it doesn't. Then it seems to work. We have the most problem with Magenta and Yellow. Lights are too light and darks are too dark for Magenta and somewhat opposite for Yellow. With one job it seems modifying curve at both ends seems to make a difference to about half of a change we're trying to achieve. But then in another instance on a different job, using two different curves for two different set of plates seem to achieve no difference in outcome. It's like it has a mind of it's own, and it's very fickle. I dunno it's frustrating.
Anyway, I'm so relieved to have found this site and having some dialogue aside from the boss telling me I need to fix this. Thanks for the helpful responses! I'll get to it between jobs!
Oh yeah, just in case, are there any techs in Socal you guys know of? Or are CTP techs a dying breed?
On our Prinergy CONNECT server it is located at:
C:\Prinergy\AdobeExtreme\bin\Harmony\HmyUseG.pdf
Let me know if you can't find it there and I'll get it to you.
I assume the output template he told you to use, Output from PDF, is the process template you use to generate plate files.
The Plate Curve box is where you enter the Harmony plate curve that makes the plate linear and below that it the Print Curve (Calibration) box is where you enter the curve created in Harmony to adjust for the dot gain on the press. The only way you do not need anything in the Plate curve box is if your plates are linear when outputting them with no curve applied as I explained in my post above.
And also like I said above...if you edit an existing curve you may or may not see the change. It is hit and miss. The only way I know of to make sure you see the changes each time is to create a new one each time.
I may have some PDFs on harmony, I'll take a look in a little bit.
Not sure how current it is but it might help. I'm running EVO here so I might be able to help if you get jammed up but harmony is a totally new language to me.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40594243/File%20transfer/03-4022E-A.pdf
I found it! Thanks!
As far as color profiles, you definitely should be using them. More importantly a specific one throughout the process. First order of business would be to make sure your plates are linear tho, like Joe said. Without a linear plate, you won't be able to test the effectiveness of your consitent ICC profiles. We use "US Web Coated SWOP v2". However, this is specific to web presses and coated stock. I would do some research as to what makes sense for whatever substrate you are printing on as well as your printing device. If you ever have the option, make sure to "Convert" profile rather than "Assign" it. Assigning will change how that specific breakdown of CMYK is rendered. Meaning the same breakdown will look different depending on what profile you assign to it. Converting will keep the "look" of that breakdown the same while changing the specific numbers. Therefore, through conversion you can keep colors consistent from device to device.