Background

You can align a printing device to an industry specification for color or gray balance by creating a Color Setup, setting your press as the Primary Color Output (PCO) and selecting the industry specification as the PCO simulation target.  

The advantage of using a Color Setup to align your press, instead of just using a stand-alone Print Calibration Curve, is that the Color Setup is also able to manage all color interactions with the PCO, including conversion of RGB or CMYK images to the PCO specification, and alignment of proofing devices (SCOs) to the PCO.

A PCO may have either a colorimetric response or a tonal response, depending on the color response type of its device condition and the way the simulation target is defined:

  • If the device condition in the PCO has a color and tonal response, you can generate ICC Device and DeviceLink profiles, and use either the tonal-match method or the gray-balance method to generate curves.

  • If the device condition in the PCO has a tonal response only, or if the simulation target contains only tonal data (for example, the simulation target is an ISO TVI curve), you can only use the tonal-match method to generate simulation curves.

Tasks

Goal
Create a color setup, add a press as PCO and import a measurement data file to characterized the colorimetric and tonal response. From this you will generate gray balance curves which will align the press to an industry specification.

Note: For this activity, you will not generate a Device Condition profile or PCO profile. Device profiles are required only if you are generating DeviceLinks. For this activity we will not use a DeviceLink for final output, so there is no need to generate Device Condition and PCO profiles.

Task 1: Create a new color setup and add a press as PCO

  1. In ColorFlow, click the Color Setups tab and click the Add button at the bottom left corner.
  2. The Devices dialog box appears. If necessary, open it manually by selecting View > Devices or double-clicking the Color Setup Viewer.
  3. From the Devices dialog box, add a new offset press device:
    1. Tip open the Add Device panel at the bottom, if it is not already open
    2. In the Device Type list, select Offset Press - Sheetfed.
    3. Name the device as Press A.
    4. Click the Create button to have it appear in the Devices viewing panel
    5. Drag Press A to the center of the viewer window.
  4. Double-click the Untitled color setup you just created and enter GRACoL C1 2006.
  5. Click the Properties icon icon in the PCO and define new properties for the device condition:
    1. Click the Edit button  next to the Plate Setup list.
    2. In the Plate Type list, add or select Kodak Thermal Gold.
    3. In the Screening list, add or select 200 lpi.
    4. In the Plate Line list, add or select 100.
    5. Click OK.
    6. Because you have already defined the screening in a Plate Setup, Screening will not be selectable and will display the entered Plate Setup value
    7. In the Substrate list, add or select Type 1.
    8. Leave Process Inks as default CMYK.
    9. Note: if you select properties that have all been used in a previous activity, the message Use Existing Device Condition will appears. For the purpose of this training, you must use unique properties, so you will need to make another entry to create a unique Device Condition. You can do this by pressing the Edit button  next to the Other list and create a new value, like "Custom Device Condition".
    10. Press the OK button at the bottom to create the Device Condition
  6. Click the Measurements icon .
  7. In the Charts list, click P2P51 i1iO.
  8. In a real-life situation, you would need to export the chart from ColorFlow, Refine and Output the chart from Prinergy, print the chart on the target Press and measure the print results in ColorFlow. For the purpose of this training, you will just import a sample data file from the ColorFlow installation folder:
    1. Click the Measurements tab at the top of the Device Measurements window.
    2. Click Import.. button under the Active Measurement panel.
    3. In the resulting dialog, leave the default Print Curve: value as Linear (None) and press the OK button.
    4. Browse to \Program Files\Kodak\ColorFlow\SampleData\Measurements\ and select ColorFlowSheetfed200lpiType1Linear.cgt
    5. Click Open. 
    6. Once the Color Response has been generated, click the Close button at the bottom of the Device Measurements panel to put it away.

Task 2: Complete the Color Setup

  1. Click the Simulation icon
  2. From the Target list, select GRACoL 2006 Coated 1.
  3. From the Curves list, select Gray Balance.
  4. Leave the 3/4-tone Correction as it is at 75%
  5. From the DeviceLink list, select None.
  6. Click OK to define the Target Simulation.
  7. Note that the Device Profile for the Offset Press and the Target Simulation remain as Undefined . The Device Profiles can be left undefined because you are just using Print Curves to align the gray balance of the PCO to the Target and Device Profiles are not required.
  8. Now that the Color Setup is defined, select the Show in Prinergy check box in the Color Setups list at the top left.

Task 3: Output a page using the color setup in Prinergy

  1. In Prinergy, create a new job, and name it as XX Press to Industry Spec (where XX = your initials).
  2. Refine GrayBalanceTestFile.pdf with 1stRef-Normz.
  3. Create a new Loose Page Output Process Template, and name it VPS-GRACoL 2006
    1. In the Output To list, select Virtual Proof.
    2. Select the ColorFlow Color Relationship Management check box.
    3. For Halftone Output Mode, select Print Production.
    4. In the Snapshot list, select Current State.
    5. Check the Allow unassigned color setup or color setup mismatch checkbox.
    6. In the Color Setup list, select GRACoL C1 2006.
    7. Device Condition, Output Version, Plate Setup and Plate Line should all have values populated from the Color Setup.
    8. Tip open the ColorConvert section and leave the Match Colors In Page Content check box cleared. Color matching will not be applied on output.
    9. Save the process template.
  4. Select the test refined file, and output it using the process template VPS - GRACoL 2006

Outcome

You have created a Color Setup to align a press to the GRACoL specification using gray balance curves.

The advantage of using a color setup rather than just a print calibration curve to align a press to a specification, is that you can align other printing devices to your press PCO by adding them as SCOs in the color setup.

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