Press Cycles
By now, if you have been paying attention, you have probably come to realize that an offset printing press cannot be controlled through density alone. The success of the G7 process has demonstrated...
View ArticleThin Slicing the Color Buy: Accurate Color from a Sea of Possibilities
The colors most important to your printing client many be any of the 16.8 million different colors that can be defined within the printing process: How can you possibly determine if your printer has...
View ArticleWhy Can’t My Offset Printer Match His Own Digital Samples?
The most frustrating continuing problem in the fabric and garment field is color matching. I’m not talking here about matching solid colors in large-scale textile production, which is a separate...
View ArticleWhere do Packaging Buyers Come From?
(And how is a box different from a poster?) I worked for many years with print buyers from the entertainment industry-those hip and trendy people who bridge the space between the glamor world of...
View ArticleThe 6 P’s of Presswork (It’s not just the pressman)
Hat tip to Brian Lawler for posting this photo of female press operators at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo on his blog. The six P’s of presswork and putting them all together...
View ArticleWe’ve Got a Guy Who Does That
A big part of what I do as a color consultant involves helping printers to achieve better quality and efficiency through process control, color management and enhanced communication. Not all printers...
View ArticleShould Color Bars be Optimized?
It seems only yesterday that debate raged, or at least quietly burbled, regarding plate curves and color bars. “Should color bars be curved, or should they be linear?” was the question that inquiring...
View ArticleThe Last Accordionist Standing
Some printers balk at investing in themselves because they see print as a shrinking industry, and they chose to ride it out to its soon-to-come demise rather than take a chance spending money to...
View ArticleRecycling is Good: Reducing Waste is Even Better
By now, recycling is a given for nearly all responsible printers. Additional and even more significant gains in sustainability can be achieved by becoming more efficient and reducing waste from the...
View ArticleThe New Prep/Press Relationship
After years on opposite sides of the wall, press and prep departments are forging new bonds, and it’s a beautiful thing. Everybody who has seen “Casablanca” at least once (and isn’t that everybody?)...
View ArticleSilly Process Control Songs
You’d think that printers would have had enough of inadequate process control practices. But I look around me and I see it isn’t so. Oh no…Printers may be focusing on expanding into new services even...
View Article“I Just Need One Good Sheet to the Numbers”
For prepress managers, “One good sheet to the numbers” is often all they need to help press operators get better results via corrective plate curves. So why is it so hard to get one? I take a look at...
View ArticleISO 3664, OBA’s and Paper
The ISO 3664 lighting standard was meant to give a more realistic simulation of real-world viewing conditions by increasing the amount of activity in UV spectral regions. Mission accomplished; but it...
View ArticleNot Just How Well….but How, as Well
It’s understood that print buyers are concerned with quality and price, and printers are concerned with efficiency and profitability; but a recent presentation by Martine Padilla made me realize that...
View ArticleThe Quality Paradox: When High-End Printers Struggle with Standards
We know why average printers struggle with standards and consistency; but why do the highest-quality printers sometimes find the same issues so challenging? It’s easy to understand why mediocre...
View ArticleStill Waiting for that Aha! moment
Everybody has heard about printing to specifications, but many printers still haven’t had any sudden flashes of inspiration over it. Are they missing something, or is printing to specs more a pain in...
View ArticleWill This Year’s Process Control Resolutions Last?
One of the most frequent calls I get is from printers who have had great success with process control but now find it slipping away from them as they drift back to old habits. In the grind of deadline...
View ArticleWhat If the Construction Business Were Run Like the Printing Business?
As graphic arts professionals, we think of ourselves as technically savvy. But are we really as sophisticated as construction workers? The role of management in a process control program is complicated...
View ArticlePrint and Brand Identity. Why Don’t We Analyze?
Brand owner used analytics to establish their color image. So why don’t they do the same to maintain the integrity of their printed colors? Marketing is one of the most analytics-driven activities...
View ArticleHow Many Colors Do You Need?
Most printers and print buyers are familiar with color bars used to maintain quality, but how many color patches do you really need? And which ones? How do we find the balance between not enough...
View ArticleSherlock Holmes Top 5 Print Tips
The great detective had a good deal to say that applies to printers, and anyone who wants to improve color quality and reduce waste could learn a good deal from mister Sherlock Holmes. Holmes Print Tip...
View ArticleThey Never Go Out to Lunch Together
I was talking about press and prep issues the other day with my friend Larry Erwin, a trade veteran with 40 years of experience in and around pressrooms, and I mentioned to him that I thought that...
View ArticleTop 5 Reasons for Printing and Buying Print to Standards
Not all printers love standards: Some like to think that they already print “beyond” the standards; others feel that printing to standards is an unnecessary burden that gets in the way of production....
View ArticleFingerprint Fails
Why Fingerprinting Your Press May be the Worst Idea Ever Ever since printers became aware of standards and specifications, press fingerprinting-AKA press characterization-has been the gold standard for...
View ArticleThe Hard Problem of Expanded Gamut Printing
Expanded gamut is the buzz of the year, with endless discussions of the fine technical points of EG printing; but in the flurry of details, we may be ignoring the hard problem of expanded gamut...
View ArticleColor Patches for Beginners: A Process Control Primer (Warning: Not for Color...
Most of us are looking at a lot more color patches than we were just a few years ago, and we’re paying more attention to what we see; but which color bar is right? What are all these different …...
View ArticleAM proofs and FM Presses: Resolving the Color Differences Part 1 of 3
FM screening makes it possible to create printing of ultra-premium quality: not only does it result in a print with no visible dots, but it also creates colors with greater purity and saturation,...
View ArticleAM Proofs and FM Presses: Resolving the Color Differences-part 2 of 3
The first installment of this series showed why offset printing using FM screening cannot completely match proofs based on a conventional AM-based GRACoL proof. The mismatch can’t be fixed with curves,...
View ArticleAM proofs and FM Presses: Resolving the Differences: Part 3 of 3
FM screening is prized by high-quality printers because of the enhanced detail and expanded midrange color gamut it offers, but color matching to a conventional proof can be frustrating. Even though...
View ArticleHitting the Spot with Recipe Colors
Accurately matching spot colors is a constant challenge to printers. Establishing consistent process control is key, but success depends on a clear understanding of the fundamentals. Custom colors are...
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