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[MarkTonk]

Originally Posted by Gregg

When someone states that their printer (e.g Epson 4800) is calibrated to their press, what does that actually mean? What is involved to create a profile that matches your press characteristics. I would appreciate as much detail as possible, or if you could steer me towards a site that discusses this that would be great too.

I understand black generation, dot gain etc. But when it comes to plate curves, linearizations, and the like, I get foggy.

Thanks.
gregg

Hi Gregg,

LoganBlade provided a good link. Here is another link on a book on Color Management:
Heidelberg - Download Center

Here is what we typically we do at an instalation of CtP, Proofing and Color Management. First, you have to calibrate the CtP to provide plates that will give you the dot gain you require. For sheetfed, we typically target 18 to 20% on a good press sheet. We will output a properly exposed set of plates with a test pattern that has scales for reading dot gain. It also will have color images and a profiling target, like a IT8.3 or IT8.4. We ask the press operator to run to the standard densities. Once we are even, we read the gain and program the rip to hit our target gain. Once we have the proper gain, we will read the IT8.4 target with a spectrophotometer into our color management program, Print Open. Print Open is one of two programs that are in our Prinect Profile Toolbox (Heidelberg - Prinect Profile Toolbox - Overview ). Print Open will generate a target profile. We will then set up the Proofer, calibrated/linearisation it. Once the proofer is calibrated, we will output the same target we printed on the inkjet proofer. We will then read that with the spectrophotometer to generate a source profile. Both are then added to our proofing software, ColorProof Pro. The source profile is the inkjet and the target is the press. The inkjet is then altered so the output matches the source profile. You may need to tweak some, which is not a problem, we have interation capability with our Print Open software.

Regards,
Mark