Curves

[rande]

I'm trying to setup a curve. Not a whole lot of experience, but I'm really close to what I want. I'm trying to soften the highlights so it helps our blends. Heres what I have incase you have any suggestions:
.5% changed to 0
.7% changed to .8
1 - .9
1.5 - 1.1
3 - 1.8
4 - 2.3
5 - 3
10 - 6.9

I'm trying to work out the 1.5% to the 10%. I think with what I just did I can get those up a bit.
My question is before I waste another plate. Do I curve all 4 colors the same or this there a forumula that I'm not aware of?

thanks
rande

[colorblind]

Where are you setting your curve, in your rip? If that's the case, keep in mind that by decreasing your values in the highlights-quarter tones, you will affect everything else that has highlights and quarter tones. You may end-up loosing details in the light zones of some images and your flesh tones will look a bit redder than before.

[rande]

Any thoughts on how we can tweek this?
Our 1 ot 2% just aren't smoothing out blends and shadows and I keep hearing about it.
Our rip dot gain software is limited. I was trying to bring everything up 1% from 3% so the press had something to work with. I thought was they could ease back on everything .3% or so to soften up the blends without losing anything in the rest.
But what I got was that my values dropped it under 1% slightly. I've made another adjustment to bring up the 3,4,5,10 to even percentages.

How are you handling this problem, smoothing the blends and shadows and not messing the rest of the images up?
And are the values above to excessive? 1% to .9%. My test showed going from 1% to .7% really made a difference. Haven't ran a live job though to see if there are any other problems.

thanks

[born2print]

First, 2 things:

1) Industry standard dot on a plate tolerance is about + or - 2%, but you're making .1% adjustments.... just saying...

2) It's not always a good idea to adjust a "curve" at too many points, you get a zigzag instead of a curve...

[LoganBlade]

are you reading dot on your plate?
have you linierized the plate setter?
what rip?
do your pressman run to standards or what ever they want?
other factors you need to know

[mrseang]

Our blends are sometimes choppy or harsh ending.
We jack up the exposure on our rip just before film.
I helps big time. Sometimes it causes issues with other things getting too light.
We have found a happy medium that works for us.

[rande]

I reading the dot on the plates. The press is useing swop densities.
We're running kodak plates, a Screen platerite 8100 with TrueFlow(with exposure up) rip at linear, so I thought. Testing showed that without a curve we're getting:
1% is 2
1.5 is 2.3
2 is 2.7
3 is 3.5
then evens out.
But what I'm hearing is that I could run 100 plates and get 100 different readings.
How else do we soften the shadows? I'm looking fot that happy medium; to tweek it ever so slightly, but sounding like we're screwed.
Maybe just bringing down the black slightly?
From what I've given now, any more ideas?
We're looking at Fui, does that make that much difference. They would be using the same dot gain software. I'll ask but does anyone know what their tolerance is?
thanks for the responses

[royboy300]

All I know is that the plates should first be linearized to your plate driver and processor.We use Fuji plates and every batch is different from the last.The numbers can also increase with a clean processor.We use an esko system and there software seems to work quite well as we use screen based DGC's for certain stocks.