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[duck]

We finally bought a used platesetter and other various equipment to join the rest of the modern print world. The idiots who sold it to us have no clue what they are doing. We're in week #7 of install and set-up, but that's a whole other story.

Now that we know the guy who calibrated to the press didn't have a clue what he was doing, we've pretty much taken it upon ourselves to set up and calibrate everything.

Now here's the problem we're having internally. The owner is upset that everything is already printing light - part of it could be bad calibration, part of it is for the first time ever, we've compensated for dot gain (I had the film linearized, but there was absolutely no measure or control for gain on plate or gain on press). My thought is that we've been printing way too heavy and now have the opportunity to get it right. The other side of the argument is that we need to add some gain to the plates to print more consistent with the rest of the print industry.

How is everyone else calibrated?

Do you calibrate so that you print an actual 50% on the press sheet where it's spec'd as 50% in the file? Or do you allow for dot gain and print heavier? My understanding is that we should calibrate so the plates are linear (25% = 25%, 50% = 50% etc...) then build a curve for the press that compensates for the dot gain so that when the ink hits the paper, the 50% still = pretty darn close to 50% etc...

I guess it boils down to whether we should be printing the actual color and percentages or whether we should have some gain to match what we printed before and what other print shops print.