Matching someone elses proof

[clod]

Everyone is making this way too complicated. ICC profiles are simple and the key. You simply need two profiles. One for their process, one for yours. Doesn't matter if it's RGB or CMYK (although CMYK to CMYK does bring up some possible black generation issues). A Device Link can help a great deal but the bottom line is we need to know how two completely different devices behave and need specific RGB or CMYK numbers for each. If you have that, color space conversions with the proper intent and a bit of massaging will get the match a good 90%-95% assuming the papers are not totally dissimilar.

Also assuming that the print in question come from a stable/repeatable output device. I've gotten photographer's "client approved" prints for us to match that were so unlinear that a Y20 patch was denser by far than a Y20 C10 M10 patch. Nightmare prints, but the client thought they looked pretty. Attempting to match those prooved only marginally successful.

[digitaldog]

Originally Posted by clod

Also assuming that the print in question come from a stable/repeatable output device.

Absolutely. If not, we have much better problems!

[LoganBlade]

How about this... make a proof of a file you have and then send to them and ask them to match. Give them a sample that was printed on you press. Tell them you will discount the first job if they match it first try. Then when they ask how they are suppose to do it you then explain how it should work.

You send me you job and color proof that ONLy represent the idea of the color.

You will then review files make a proof and then they may see what and how it wrks.

I know someone else said the same thing That may be the best solution

Education is a great thing
a Design degree is dangerous

[tlotzer]

The client sent a file for us to proof with our 6/40 coated press profile embedded.

The proof came out overly major Reddish (Mag too high).

Are we doubling up on our profile?

In Rampage, we proof using our Press profile as the Source profile, the Destination profile is the Epson 10600 ICC, with a rendering intent of Relative Colormetric.

I opened 2 copies of their file - one honoring the profile and one discarding the profile.

The one I honored was reddish like the proof, the other where I discarded to profile was closer to the color they wanted.

Are we just spiining our wheels using ICC profiles in the tif file or am I just applying it wrong, or is the client's monitor not calibrated to see how much red they had using our profile?

I made color cxs to the honored one, reproofed till it looked good. I then opened the dicarded profile version and looked at them side by side - the color cx'd one where I honored the profile and the original file where I discarded the profile.

If the profile was the problem then I would suspect that they should look similar. But the color cx'd one was way yellow, less red than the one I discarded the profile. So, I wonder if the client's monitor is not calibrated and did not show them the true colors of our profile when they created their image. Or it could be that the designer doesn't know how to "go be the numbers" and that their mix was really red compared to what the real numbers should have been.

I wonder if the client, using a color calibrated monitor, should just assign our profile to get their monitor to show them the correct color, but not embed the profile when saving. Thay way when we receive the file with say, "US sheetfed" embedded, then we proof the file using our profile, it is converted in Rampage to what they were seeing on monitor.

[digitaldog]

Originally Posted by tlotzer

The client sent a file for us to proof with our 6/40 coated press profile embedded.

The proof came out overly major Reddish (Mag too high).

Are we doubling up on our profile?.

Sure sounds like it. A very red/megenta output is often seen with double profiling. If the file is in your output color space, it's "ready to go" (the numbers are optimized for that device). A secondary conversion would not be good.

Now the question is, if they provided you a file in your output color space, what did they do to proof it? They must have converted to another output color space for their proofing system.

[silversurfer]

Originally Posted by tlotzer

The client sent a file for us to proof with our 6/40 coated press profile embedded.

The proof came out overly major Reddish (Mag too high).

Are we doubling up on our profile?

In Rampage, we proof using our Press profile as the Source profile, the Destination profile is the Epson 10600 ICC, with a rendering intent of Relative Colormetric.

I opened 2 copies of their file - one honoring the profile and one discarding the profile.

The one I honored was reddish like the proof, the other where I discarded to profile was closer to the color they wanted.

So, if I'm reading this right: your customer sent you a file, you proofed it and it was red. You opened it on a calibrated monitor and it was red.

That sounds like your systems/procedures are working fine. The customer's file is wrong however, so you'll need to work with them to figure out what they are doing.

[Zalgren]

I just went through a similar problem with a local agency. They created a job for a client and proofed it in house. Received an 'OK', then gave the file to me. After a little hair pulling dealing with the color shifts, they told me they don't calibrate their printer ("it's supposed to calibrate it self" is what I was told).

I gave them print out from three of my devices that all matched each other and told them that was what would print - they spent 2 days color correcting and having me output proof.

The over all end results;
- their job was finally printed correctly
- they will now have me output color proofs for their clients
- they called a "tech guy" in to calibrate their printer

My point - if you know that you are proofing the colors correctly, place the burden of fixing back on them -

[tlotzer]

Originally Posted by ddbray

ICC Profiles... CONFUSSING.


My practice is to strip all ICC Profile infor from my files amd make sure that the numbers are gray balanced in Photoshop.

For those who are stripping the client's ICC profile rather than honoring them, might read: http://www.gballard.net/psd/honormyembeddedprofile.html