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1. Re: Which Soft-proof preset for a Printing House?
p taz May 27, 2009 11:09 PM (in response to monmart)My personal opinion: A monitor never looks right and can never look right (for a range of jobs). Fact is that it is an RGB device and all of its colours are simulations only of anything outside of RGB. RGB and CMYK are totally different universes!
It can do a reasonable job of simulating most mid-range colours but is terrible at different blacks and pale colours close to white.
You need to learn what the numbers will print as far as rich blacks and light highlights on various stocks etc. To simulate better, you might use a good printer which has been calibrated to simulate the output of a particular stock and preferably a particular printing condition. To do this, you could print a test strip with your favourite printer on your most popular stock and set up your in-house printer to match. This is of course expensive and difficult.
We, as a printer, have done press tests of major jobs for fussy clients and they can use them as a reference.
In the absence of a press simulation, most print houses around here (Aust) tend to like to adjust their output to look like the prints expected from US Web Coated SWOP V2 (even for sheet offset litho). You have to start somewhere as each press has different capabilities and most shops choose a favourite colour model when they first set up their presses.
Soft proofing to that profile here works pretty well. Talk to your prepress people about the rich blacks as it is a fine line when you want nice blacks and vivid colours on the same sheet especially.
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2. Re: Which Soft-proof preset for a Printing House?
Ramón G Castañeda May 27, 2009 11:34 PM (in response to monmart)monmart wrote:
If I'm unable to get the profile from the printer, then…
…then I look for another printer, honestly. However, I understand you may not have that option.
If you're stuck, I'd suggest making a contract proof and making them match your print or they don't get paid.
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3. Re: Which Soft-proof preset for a Printing House?
PeterK.. May 28, 2009 1:39 PM (in response to Ramón G Castañeda)If the printer was colour-managed, you could expect your work to come out reasonably close on press, and the responsibility for how your work looks would fall a great deal on you. If they aren't colour-managed, give them a proof for what you expect and tell them that the responsibility for colour must therefore be on them, and don't let them pass on "colour correction" costs to you. The time they spend correcting your work is a consequence of their lack of process control, and you shouldn't be paying them extra because they haven't put in the time/money for a proper workflow that would output your work correctly the first time.
edit-assuming you're providing them images with embedded profiles.
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4. Re: Which Soft-proof preset for a Printing House?
p taz May 28, 2009 3:17 PM (in response to PeterK..)Just to reinforce something PeterK says here; If a printer is NOT colour managed, then you have the right to expect them to match your proof IF you made the file and proof correctly. They leave themselves open to trouble by not being colour managed.
If they ARE colour managed, then, as he says the responsibility comes back to you, BUT that depends on you supplying a correct colour proof and file also, but here's the rub...
You probably could not get a printers profile for the exact stock, screen set, ink set, density setting. Even if you did, you also probably cannot proof your job on the exact stock with the same 'stripe' (content in line with target page) and myriad other technical issues.
So my point is that you cannot give a blanket instruction to the printer to 'match the proof' without the possibility of some colour correction.
Having said that, in my experience, I could count on one finger the number of designers who could actually provide a very accurate soft proof. Most don't even bother trying these days and when they do, they are rarely correct and the number that say 'I want you to ignore the proof and make it look like it does on the monitor' makes me cringe! Even a good soft proof is only a starting point.
As a designer, you need to find a good, colour managed printer, put a few jobs through, get your soft proofing looking like their proofs (or press output) and get your screen looking acceptable to you and then you are as close as you are going to get to predictability; provided you are using correct colour management.


