JV3-160S and Flexi 7.6PRO Color Management

[Tovis]

I am just about to graduate with a BS in Photography so color management is not something foreign to me. With my photography business I run an Epson and my calibration runs perfectly, what my lab puts out is exactly what I see on my monitor. I would love to get the Mimaki at work running the same out of Flexi 7.6 Pro. Out of RasterLink things run perfectly on PVC @ 720 DPI. Run out of the production manager I have to adjust colors a lot to get a product looking good.

I would love to calibrate Flexi the Mimaki and my ViewSonic monitor with our Gretag Macbeth I1. I’ve run the application before (just like I have with my LaCie system at my photo digi-darkroom) and didn’t see much change.

Is it possible to get WYSIWUG in Flexi using the production manager? Have any of you faced the same ordeal?

 

[Tovis]

LOL, 26 replies to my welcome entry but zero to this...

 

[eye4clr]

I'm too rusty with flexi to step you through the process without the rip in front of me, but i can give you some general pointers.

To calibrate and profile your monitor is worthwhile but doesn't improve your prints directly. What you'll need is something like the EyeOne Proof system to work with flexi.

You'll go through a wizard sort of thing and do a series of steps...
1. set ink restrictions. This establishes what 100% of each ink really means in terms of how much ink goes down. This is the foundation for the rest of the process and is the hardest to do well without some tricks and guidance.
2. linearize/calibrate. I slash it because you can call it either one and be right. What this is supposed to do is to get each individual ink to ramp evenly from 0-100% and provide a tool to re-do this step later on to bring things back in line when it drifts in the future. And it will drift - for sure.
3. multi ink limits. I personally don't like this step but many swear by it. It is supposed to reduce ink loads in 2 and 3 color mixes like red, blue, and green. I find it just makes things harder for the icc profile to do its job well.
4. icc profile. This is what you need the EyeOne Proof for. You use the EyeOne software to provide a target file you print that has lots of patches of color that are measured with the EyeOne spectrophotometer. This allows you to generate a little icc profile that can then remix color within flexi from your incoming rgb or cmyk file to cmyk values that work for whatever specific printer/ink/media/resolution you're running.

Overall, you'll spend around $2-3k for software/hardware and if you really need to get up to speed quickly, you'll spend and additional $2500-3500 for onsite training. Many folks take it on themselves to figure it out. It can work, it just takes longer and is far more frustrating then plunking down for proper training.

Contact me directly at my shop if i can help with buying the EyeOne and/or training 858 654 2800