View Full Version : colour management issues - printing


karin l
02-11-2008, 12:20 AM
Hi all
I hope someone can help me with this.
I work for a publishing firm that sends work to web, flatbed, and recently, gravure presses. We create documents in InDesign and then export press PDFs to send to the printers. As part of the PDF export preset we use, Color management (under the Advanced tab) is set to "Leave unchanged" as recommended by the web pre-press people.

We have always used a Euroscale Coated cmyk colour profile.

However, recently we have acquired a publication that is sent to gravure press, and the pre-press people there gave us a new colour profile to use when converting images from rgb to cmyk.
It is called Fuji Color Art 7.2.01. This profile allows the cmy plates of the image to not use UCR in conversion, i.e. the cmy plates are punchy and colour-rich in a way they weren't before. How this is going to affect our ink limit settings I don't know.

As far as I am aware, InDesign defaults to a 300 ink limits setting, regardless of the makeup of the colour images or swatches created in the program.
Does this mean I needn't worry about there being too much ink on the page?
If I want to create a new preset with this new profile in mind, and set in as destination profile under the Advanced tab will this cause problems?

It seems the colour quality will be better and punchier (and blacks richer?) with the Fuji profile and I begin to wonder if I should use it on other publications too.
Is it possible for me to use the same profile for work being sent to web and sheet-fed presses? Or will this create problems?

I am feeling confused about the best way to approach this issue.
please help if you can
thanks
Karin.

pixelzombie
02-11-2008, 12:40 AM
i have never heard of the 300 max density setting in Indesign and not using UCR doesn't make any sense at all..gravure can have a dmax as high as 340 so that profile wouldn't be suitable for web or sheet fed presses...

karin l
02-11-2008, 12:49 AM
hi pixelzombie
thanks for responding
why does it not make sense to not use UCR?
is the profile not suitable for web and sheet-fed because they can't handle a higher ink density on the page?
is this because of dot gain?

k

pixelzombie
02-11-2008, 12:50 AM
there has to be some sort of UCR or GCR regardless of the process, web generally has a limit of 320 and sheet fed can be as high as 320...

karin l
03-03-2008, 03:44 AM
Hi all
thanks for your various input on this issue.
I have recently received the printed product of the publication I was having this issue around, and used the new printer-recommended profile on. it looks fantastic, the colours are vibrant and rich and the images leap at me off the page in a way they never did before. It's so great to discover that it worked!
so limiting UCR was the answer it seems!
k

pixelzombie
03-03-2008, 02:03 PM
what do you mean by limiting?

karin l
03-03-2008, 11:31 PM
the new cmyk profile we are using removes less colour from under the c,m,y in the mid to shadow areas than the previous profile (web profile) did.
so therefore, there is denser colour, and it prints more vibrantly.
k

OnAir
03-04-2008, 12:54 AM
Colors in gravure printing always look more saturated, than in offset, because gravure printing due its technology transfers more ink to the paper. I would not recommend using gravure profile for offset, as it could cause wrong tone reproduction.