Human Skin Color Printout Issue

[joe_liew]

Dear All,

I have a problem of getting the human skin color printed correctly through our Epson 10600 (Ultrachrome ink). The Press printout and our proof printout from Epson 10600 is different only on the Human skin color. In our press the human skin color appear to be faded or dull. However it appears to be perfect in our proofs. Note the problem only occurs on human images that are big in size. The smaller ones we have no problem in printing it correctly through our proof and press.

Regardless of the material paper material or color profile that I use to print through Epson 10600 it is still having the same problem. The human skin color problem only occurs on human images that are huge. For example: Magazine's front cover model. I notice that the original image is actually taken from Digital cameras with 6 or 7 megapixels. The images of the model that has been taken are already saved in CMYK mode. What else is needed to be done in order to get the color printout correctly?

[Greg_OneVision]

Are you using any type of colormanagement?

[joe_liew]

Greg_OneVision,

I'm using Best Color Management software with few ICC profiles. Tested all the ICC profiles but still cannot get the color. The ICC profiles were created by local service providers specialise in color management.

I've read some articles about Digital Cameras snapshots which requires color corrections and stuff like that. I wonder if it is necessary to do so.
Below is one of those articles i came across.

http://www.rgbcmyk.net/cparticle.html

One of our client is a local magazine publisher. They use digital camera to capture their own photos of the Model for the front cover. I was told that the resolution in the camera itself has already been set to 300. After that they convert the color from RGB to CMYK directly using the Adobe Photoshop image color mode. They will touchup a little bit on the image and save it as tiff. In Adobe Indesign they place the image of the model in the front cover layout and convert the file into PDF using High res job options.

As for the advertisers images in the magazine itself i dont have the problem of printing it with acceptable color printout of the human skin colors.

Please advice if there is anything else needed to do so. Thanks.

[makeema]

Good day,
Did the picture have any enlargement in the cover document?

[beermonster]

just an idea but maybe it's in the method of production as well as the image?

maybe, since i've had a similar problem, you might find highlights and skin tones reproduce poorly because the fine screens in them get developed out or overexposed at plate making? If you have ctp thats unlikely though. some images do lean towards a higher screen or even stoccastic. I my experience good tone across images can still be reproduced well with film.

I had a job that had this problem. we tried printing stoccastic screening, had someone make the plates for us, and it looked crap. I retouched the main image - basically adding in more work to the highlights, tweaking the contrast, doing some wizardry, and we printed it from film at 175/2400 and it looked great.

I'd also look at the colour plates at 100% size <no doubt you already have> in photoshop and see what percentages of each colour are in the dodgy areas?then judge how best to adjust it.

just some ideas?good luck!

beer monster