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Proofing in Photoshop: 4-color press

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proof for something to be printed using a Heidelberg 4-color press?

--
I think they call it CMYK--have you seen something liike that?

Mike Caldwell
'if your only tool is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail'
 
Hi David,

As i promissed i try to contact my friend. but i couldn't get hold of him. so call other guy what he mention is"most of printer have their profile which you can load also get the roughly idea go to PS in view and select color proof. but again i will try to contact my friend tomorrow.

Hope this will help.

GJ
DavidP said:
Does anybody know how to setup Photoshop to proof for something to
be printed using a Heidelberg 4-color press?

--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
Click to expand...
 
You convert the image to a CMYK profile under the Image Mode menu. Those are the four colors in the separation process. Once converted, do a file "save as" and include CMYK in the filename so you can distingush it from the non-converted original. "ducks-01-CMYK" vs just "ducks_01".

-FP
DavidP said:
Does anybody know how to setup Photoshop to proof for something to
be printed using a Heidelberg 4-color press?

--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
Click to expand...
 
Yes, but there's like a bazillion differnet combinations of parameters one can use for converting to CYMK.
Frank Patton said:
You convert the image to a CMYK profile under the Image Mode menu.
Those are the four colors in the separation process. Once
converted, do a file "save as" and include CMYK in the filename so
you can distingush it from the non-converted original.
"ducks-01-CMYK" vs just "ducks_01".
Click to expand...
--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
 
Not to get to technical (I can if anyone would like) but here's some basic PS settings that will help the press reproduce what you see on screen.

A couple quick notes about Offset Printing.

Allowances MUST be made for dot gain (ink absortion and spreading into paper) also the size of gamet that CMYK can produce is smaller that RGB what this means is some extreme colours CANNOT be reproduced on a press. (Mostly Greens and Blues at the far edges of the RGB spectum)

PS will give you a visual represntaion and warning the triangle with the "!" mark beside it will let you know the colour your sampling or using is "out of gamet" for CMYK.

For settings depending on the version of PS your running, get into the "Colour Settings" CMYK setup.

For INK = SWAP (Coated) is usualy good

Dot Gain = Set this to 20% (This should be the default anyway)

Separation Type = GCR and Black Generation = LIGHT

(This is a fairly complicated thing to explane but in real basic terms it's removing parts of the CMY colour and replacing it with black, the result is an image that looks the same but requies less ink to print)

Total ink linit = 300%

What happens is 300% total ink coverage is exceded you get whats refered to as plugging (basicaly the blending of dots) which will result in muddy looking un-sharp images.

There's a tone more stuff that's involved but most print shops will do the fine tunning of your images themselfs as they're calibarated their process to their press and proofing devices.

The setting above will help get you in the niebourhood.

Also a quick note on B/W images be sure to adjust your curves to that the max black is no more that 85% and no lower than 1-2%

Got to get back to work sorry for the rushed poorly spelt reply.
DavidP said:
Does anybody know how to setup Photoshop to proof for something to
be printed using a Heidelberg 4-color press?

--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
Click to expand...
 
Hi David,

Yes; almost all my work is destined for printing on a Heidelberg press so do it every day.

If your images are scanned or come from a digital camera in RGB you can convert to cmyk safely in Photoshop 5.5 or above. as has been mentioned, you'll need to choose your cmyk profile. SWOP coated 20% is good although I use the 3M Matchprint Euroscale.

You can get a good idea of how the image will print via PS soft proofing but to be sure you need a proper cmyk proofer printer. We use Epson 1520 and 890 printers via the Adobe PressReady software. This turns the Epson into a Postscript level 3 printer.

In Pressready, you can chose your cmyk profile (3M Matchprint in our case) and print from PS. Having said that, I go one step further and drop the images into Adobe Pagemaker 7 and run proofs from that. The Pagemaker document is configured for a Linotronic 630 imagesetter. Being a proper dtp program, proofing from Pagemaker is marginally more accurate than from PS.

These are very accurate and are used as print proofs when delivering repro film for printing. For large quantities of images we use the Pagemaker plug-in PhotoTiler (Andromeda software)to produce fully cmyk colour profiled "contact sheet" ref. proofs.

Hope this helps;
Peter
DavidP said:
Does anybody know how to setup Photoshop to proof for something to
be printed using a Heidelberg 4-color press?

--
The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons
http://thewilkinsons.crosswinds.net
Photography -- just another word for compromise
Click to expand...
--
Peter Phelan Professional Imaging Ltd
Falmouth UK
http://www.peterphelan.com
 
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