Hey All,

We recently had a pretty big mess-up in our Prepress department.  We plated and therefore printed last months file, instead of the current months. 

Since we are using Prinergy, we have all of our "working files" on that server.  Every customer gets their own folder.  In that folder are dated folders where we have the press ready PDF, Imposition, and the VPS Proofs.  An example has been attached.

I manually archive all old files every Friday. But with daily pubs, you are likely to see 3 or 4 dated folders in a customer's folder at any given time.  This is where the issue occured.  One of the older folders was used. 

Are you guys archiving daily?  Or is there another way you guys make sure this doesn't happen?  IMO, this is just a human error that you can't really plan for.  But, I wanna do my due diligence and see if there are better solutions out there.  

Hey All,

We are in the midst of a big remodel and I'm getting a shiny new TINY prepress room to work in.  There's all this talk about making sure we get amberlith or rubylith to cover the lights to make sure its dark enough and no UV is in the room.  While I understand that there is a use for these colored lights, are any of you guys still working in a dark room?   The year+ i've been here we have not had any type of special lights in our prepress department, so I'm wondering if there is still a need.    I know if we move to processless plates, that those will be more light sensitive.  But, we have not made that jump yet, and I doubt we will in the next year or so. 

Thoughts?

For some reason the text is getting all jumbled up when I output to plate.  Everything looks fine on my VPS Proofs as well as the PDF.  But turns to shit when I output.  I've been able to fix this by flattening the image in Photoshop and then (re)refining through Prinergy. 

 Background info - The stroke has been expanded/converted to outlines.  But, the rest of the text is set up as such(text).  We are running Prinergy 5.1.  

So there's a couple of questions:

A: Is this something I should be able to identify before it goes to plate?
a: Is this issue on our side of things or can I put it back on the client?

B: Why???

I remember something like this being discussed before, I just wasn't exactly sure where to find it.
(image - The sig on the left is the press product and the sig on the right is the proof... )

Hopefully someone is around to help me out...'Cuz I am stuck.

We had to move my workstation to get ready for a remodel.  I've got everything hooked back up and everything is working independently.  However, I can't get prinergy to send my proofs to the printer.  Normalizing, Color Matching, Trapping, and Optimizing all work great.  It's when it gets to the File Moving Stage it get caught up.  It's giving me a "failed to create temporary folder" error. 

I can use my EFI Client to print.  But Prinergy won't send the files...

Anybody got some troubleshooting ideas?

So, here's the situation:

We have two proofers now, a HP 1050C for all the coldset, uncoated work and a Epson 9900 for the glossy heatset jobs.  The HP 1050 is on its last leg.  With that said, we will be needing a replacement for the HP in the next year or so. 

The higher ups want to get a shiny, new high end dot proofer to replace the Epson 9900 and use the Epson 9900 for all our uncoated coldset jobs.  They also want to figure out a way to use End/Butt rolls on the Epson.  From the research I've done this is not possible.  Using end-rolls on the Epson would not work, they would bleed too much.  Even if it could it seems like overkill to use the Epson 9900 for newsprint jobs.  Also, I bet it would be a lot more expensive.  Obviously they don't take my word for it and want me to make it work. 

Am I wrong? Is this actually possible?

Or can one of you give me some fancy buzzwords to use to help prove my point?

 

So, we are starting to have some color issues on press, not being able to match proofs, especially matching Reds.  We recently re-calibrated our proofers and in my opinion, it helped expose a problem that has been getting worse over time.  However, some seem to think that making our proofs color accurate, is the root of our issues....Anyways, we are not currently using any Plate Curves, just Press Curves.  And they are being applied by Prinergy 5.1.  So I would like to create some simple Plate Curves.

At the bottom of every plate is a simple QC strip with a 2%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 98% swatch.  It is my understanding that if I remove the Press Curve, output some plates, I should get at 2%,....,98% dot percentage reading aka they match the QC strip.  

So my next move would be to go into Harmony and enter my readings into the current section, linearize my target, and create a calibrated curve.  

While this seems simple enough, I just want to make sure I'm not forgetting anything or if I need to make sure to factor in other variables.  My initial concern is that the Press Curves already compensate for the lack of a Plate Curve, and therefore adding a Plate Curve would just dig us a deeper hole.  

Anyways, I'm sure not all of this makes complete sense, so feel free to have me clarify...

Hi All,

Our Supplier (Alder Tech) is no longer selling any HP products.   We won't need paper but I will still need a way to get Ink/Printheads.  Anybody still use a HP Designjet 1050C? Or know of a good supplier?  I was told that HP is pulling their products from smaller shops and giving them all to the bigger companies... Sounds about right.

So, I got an email from a customer who is having trouble trying to copy and paste from his PDF.  If you copy and paste from the 8 page document into a text editor(I'm using textedit), the formatting is way off and messes up all the text.  But, if you export just a single page from InDesign, and try to copy and paste the same text, it formats perfectly.

  The only difference I can find is that the 8 page PDF is "Tagged" and the Single page PDF is not.  I don't have much info on what he is doing besides that he's using "Indesign 2.0"....

 I've attached a screen shot of what happens when you copy and paste from both documents.  And if you want to take a look at the PDFs, here is a link:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/07nlon7o1a8d079/AACTuBq5jI5Udu9DZWgZMn3Ea?dl=0

So I've been using the Create Imposition process templates in Preps 5.3.  Or at least trying to.  For some files it works and some it doesn't.  And I can't figure out what the variable is to make it work consistently.  I've even made unique preps templates that only house one template in them, so Preps doesn't get confused on which one to pick.  Even then, some files will work and some won't.  Is there something I'm missing?

Another follow up question:  In the workflow templates, where I have it creating impos, creating vps and sending to the proofers.  The plates/proofs come out with "Evo.job" instead of the actual file name.  However when I use those process templates singularly it uses the defined name.

  Let me know if you need any more info!

So we have an Epson 9900, and I just want to know what y'all are doing for maintenance and standard practices for keeping it in good working order. 

The biggest problem I have is clogged nozzles.  Which never seem to go away.  I've tried the trick of wetting a paper towel with windex and sliding the Printheads over it.  The ammonia gasses are suppose to break down the ink clogs.  It seems to work but only for a day or two.  Is there a trick to getting them to stay clog-free?

Also, how low are you letting your inks go before replacing them?  Is it bad practice to let it get empty before you switch them out?  Vendors say not to, but that means buying ink more frequently.  So not necessarily a viable source.

Are there any or preventative maintenance that you guys are doing?

Hey All,

I've encountered a problem with a Moire pattern showing up on a product.  It's a comic book that was designed using half-tone dots throughout the publication.  It's a compilation of designers so only a specific artist's section turned into an obvious almost checkerboard moire pattern.  It did not show up on the proofs or even when looking at Kodaks Virtual Proofs.  I've attached an image of the VPS proofs and one of the final product. 

I want to know if it's something that can be fixed on the prepress side of things or if there are tips I can give the designer to help this not happen in the future.

Any info is helpful!

Thanks