Good morning~

Coming back to printing after a hiatus I'm amazed at how little I knew about what I was doing. Yet I'm amazed at how little I still don't know and why my boss would call me back.  Anyway I'm in sublimation and I just learned there's something called an ICC.

I think that's what's making our colors come out all wacky because we don't use the embedded profile from our clients' images when proofing on digital printer. And when it goes out to our offset colors are off. Did that make any sense?

We just paid our ink supplier $500 to calibrate a CTP curve to match our offset but it's still off. So I have to go back to the file in Photoshop and tweek curves, burn plates and hope for the best.

My question still is is this normal? Seems for every job I have to tweek the curves a different way, thus no consistency. I'm guessing ICC is the culprit?  It would make life so much easier to have the colors come out the same as the file and eliminate the tweeking part of it!

Sometimes it takes us 3-5 hours on a single job just color matching and production comes to a halt! All the paper, ink and time wasted!

It's been 3 years since I last posted.  My old boss called me and I'm back in this stinking place.  To refresh your memory I'm the guy with an old Lotem CTP posting for help daily.

Good to see you guys again!  I remember Joe, Slappy.. who else... been so long.  Anyway I'm sure I'll start posting again soon!

Glad to see you guys are still active!

Hi guys, I'm here to say goodbye and came to ask my last question.  Although I wanted to leave this place, my boss beat me to it and fired me.. well, laid me off.  So before I leave here I wanted to help him set up the curve so that life will be easier for him and the press guys here. 

Maybe some of you remember me crying about our 100% magenta images as always being very dull when it comes out from plate press.  I tried cranking up the top portion of Magenta curve in harmony and it won't do a thing.  Everything below about 65-70% changes fine,  but anything over there's no difference in color.

I was wondering is there a cap that you can put in harmony so that colors won't change beyond the cap value?  If so how can I change it?

Ok.. thanks for all your help while I've been here for year and few months.  You guys really helped me out.  I'm still looking for work but it's hard finding anything for me.  I am hoping they call me back from Sprint store for sales rep.

Anyway, take care guys.  Don't drink too much. 

Hi guys, after a huge screaming match, cussing and fighting with my boss... I'm still here cuz I have no where else to go.  Anyways, I figured out our Mutoh profile is the culprit.  Our Mutoh curve is all wacked out.  We have the color profile of our competitor, a big sublimation printing company around here, and their's is beautiful.  And I know it's right cuz I happened to meet this dude at some bar in my neighborhood and he kept insisting he knows me.  Turned out it was a dude my close friend was friends with and I met him 10 years ago while partying and now he's the owner of that company and he has 15 years printing experience from Germany and US.  What are the odds?

Anyway, my question is can we color match the CTP to the Mutoh color profile?  From what some of you guys said, you have to match the Mutoh to the CTP.. but I think if we match it the other way around we'll have this problem solved.  My boss is asking me to get that guy's CTP profile, but would that even work?  I don't even think he'll give it to me cuz we're one of his competitors.

help...

Oh yeah.. one more thing.  Every file I print with this profile come out exactly like the sample from Mutoh, while with our profile I have to spend 30 minutes adjusting all the colors in Photoshop.

As some of you may know I'm in sublimation prepress.  It's probably a lot different than what you guys do as we mainly only work with 28"x40" image prints, no fonts or text.  However, it's a bitch of a job cuz colors have to be an exact duplicate of sample, which can change drastically given certain fabrics and minor heatpress adjustments in time and temp. 

I've been having a hell of a time working here cuz the samples that come in are made with different digital printer curves and we have to match the colors by manipulating the image in photoshop with a digital and offset printers that don't always line up... most of the time it's way off and we have to run the press blind, which means making corrections with new plates.

On top of the stress from nothing working right, my boss decided to tell us we're working part time now with part time pay for the next 3 months.  Well July is almost over and he cut pay by 1/3 yet with the exception of 2 days, we're still working full time hours plus no pay overtime.  WTF.  This is really starting to chap my hide, as I can't even try and supplement my income by getting a part time gig cuz I'm still working full time hours!!! 

So, with one year sublimation prepress under my belt, what would I need to learn to try and land a job doing what you guys all do?  Printing calendars and books and stuff I'm guessing.  I think we use all the same software and CTP machines from what I gather reading some of the posts and the help I got this past year.

Thanks for any responses!

We ran out of our usual Fuji plates and because we got Sonora Kodak sample plates in I didn't order any more.  Sonora won't work!!  My boss is pissed off at me and I need help please!  How do you make these suckers work?  The values were already in our Lotem 800.  He said it worked before I don't know why it's not accepting them..

I've come a long ways since my first posts thanks to you guys.  Wish I had more time to come back and post more than requests for help, but sorry here's another one. 

We've landed new clients who've given us work but each client uses their own color profile on their digital printing devices that are different from the one in our Mutoh.  The files all print out much darker and richer than compared to what comes out of our printer and we need to match for production.  Each client's files all print differently from each other as well.  So to address this, we went out there and planted the color profile that we use in their printer, but they don't like how it prints because the colors look washed out next to their color profile. 

Because we have our existing clients using our color profile and our Lotem 800 is matched to the existing profile, it would be the last resort to change ours to match each new clients color curve.  Do you guys have any idea how we can approach this?  Our normal time to do a job of about an hour has turned to 3 hours or more.  Sometimes we have taken an entire day to do a single job because the colors change so drastically when run on press after matching on Mutoh.   And one uniform problem on all jobs is our deep and intense reds never come out as brilliant that we have to bring down all other colors 20% on the file img and crank up the magenta ink on the press.

After 2 months of continually doing this everyday with unpaid overtime going home after 10 not to mention the frustration is needless to say burning everyone out.  Not sure what to do.. has anyone else run into this sort of problem??  We do sublimation printing for apparel if that might shed light in finding some sort of solution.  One more thing, each client also have different clients using different artists, so using one color profile doesn't necessarily reduce the amount of color matching with Photoshop for each job.  Once in awhile I  get lucky in that using a curve that I did for a previous job works, but 98% I have to go through the pains of matching to mutoh and then matching 2nd time on press.

Sorry, I seem to only come here to ask for help.. been so busy here.  But, how do you get these suckers to comes off?  Plate suckers that is.  I called tech support at Fuji Film and they won't help me because we have a Lotem 800, even though we order plates from them.  Only thing he said is there maybe a ring where it attaches, but I don't see or feel any ring.  I got the bottom flat part to come off by ripping it off, but the rest is fused on there somehow. 

Can anyone tell me how they yank it off from your machine?

Anyone know where I can get some of these?  And also how to pull them off? 

I tried allen key in the air hold under the suction cup, but doesn't work.  I tried to yank them off but I just ripped the suction cup part off from the rest of its rubber ring.  I read somewhere that there's an o-ring that holds it but there is no o-ring I can find.

Thanks in advance!!

I'm so embarrassed.  Our Lotem 800 has a lot of issues so we keep the hood open and manually pull out the cover sheet and hold the plate so the punch don't get jammed, etc etc.  I am really sick today and going on little sleep and I was a little late in pulling the paper out and my arm got caught between the vertical metal side wall and the gripper bar as it was sliding toward the drum.  Man that thing is strong!!  I couldn't pull my arm out and yanked on the gripper top bar and left side jumped a couple of teeth in the belt I guess? 

So I have my arm intact minus some minor lacerations but the gripper is now crooked... one side too far from drum when it's backed up toward the drum.  How can I adjust this???  Anyone know????  Man, it's not a good day.  We're finally getting busy and now this!!  help..

Hey guys I'm back to ask another question.  I'm getting the following error message on our Mutoh RJ-900 Pro: Mutoh E082Err PumpPhas.  I suspect the pump life is over and won't let me do a thing with the printer.  It was printing fine then the error msg popped up blinking and won't stop.  I tried resetting the pump back to zero, and doing a "deep clean" to no avail.

Now, the damn pump cap assembly is like $444 and there's some on ebay for much reasonable price in the area of $120, but shipped from China.  We need this machine up and running so Ebay is out of the question and my boss has no money to fork over nearly $500.

Is there any way I can just reset this somehow?  I took the thing apart and pulled the pump out then put everything back together and same error msg.  I also tried to find just the pump but every place I tried says it's not available and we have to purchase the entire assembly.

Our Mutoh supplier guy tells me it hit it's life counter and will not let the printer function, so once we pay an arm and a leg and put it in it'll function again.  I dunno.. a little bit suspicious of the info he's giving me.

Hey guys, do any of you use 8 bit or 16 bit images for plate making?  We make 27" x 39" image plates and I noticed all the files we get are 8 bits.  But the clients are so damn anal about their images and colors.  I don't know if 8 bit jpg is industry standard for apparel sublimation, but why don't they send us 16 bit images?  Would the file size be too large to work with?

Also for making color adjustments which tools do you guys use most?  I've been using Channel Mixer and have been consistently going over the 100% warning when making color corrections.  I just realized I shouldn't be doing this and I think this explains why some of the images that need massive color correction comes out very different on the plate, which then need further adjustment and new plates made.  Most of the color corrections can't be solved with curves cuz it's the individual colors and shades that are off in opposing directions as opposed to a simple shift in color or tone.

Best way I can come up with is separating the images of certain colors in layers and adjusting it that way.. using Channel Mixer.  I find that not going over the 100% warning is too difficult because I have to fiddle around and subtract the other channels (ex. MYK) to keep it at 100% while trying to adjust and match the target color (ex. C).  What would be a better or rather best way to do this?  Color Balance tool?  I tried Selective Color tool but it seems to encroach on colors that I don't want changed when adjusting a specific color, and it's doesn't seem too precise when I'm aiming to change one specific color or shade.  What can I use to just raise or lower a yellow spot by 2 percentage points for example without affecting anything else? 

Anyone know where to get one that fits?  I tried Home Depot and online and I still haven't found the right size and height.  Thanks!!

Of the many problems with our Lotem 800 at work, I really wish the punch would work.  Does anyone know how to get it to automatically punch?

I have to manually reset the XY and initialize the drum.  It would be awesome if someone knows how to get this to work as well.  Thanks!!

I was printing something as usual and pressed the RIP and print button and left the room for a second.  I came back and the computer automatically restarted.  My Mutoh not responding.  After the computer booted back up, Wasatch program opened up on it's own and started spooling every file that's in the computer!!  My Mutoh is printing everything and is out of control!! 

I shut off the printer several times and restarted the software and rebooted the computer several times and each time it's spooling like crazy trying to print everything!!  How do I make it stop?????

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...    Harmony curve matching is a whole another issue, but I need to figure Photoshop out first!! Please hep meh..