Proofing CMYK with an HP 9180

[neil snape]

Since I went through the torturous adventure of wrangling the colour and workflow for proofs I thought you might find it useful.


I just made a major revision to my site, including the addition of topic of how to make press simulations, almost as good as a high end proofer colorwise that is.

There are instructions, an Action , and a profile to do this.
It resolves the issues at hand for the difficult proofing of CMYK for press. With this method you should be able to get results that rival most rips for inkjets. The topic header is Proofing CMYK for offset.... in the 9180 review on my site.

Let me know if it works for you.

[usathyan]

Neil,

Not sure why - but your site is blocked by the firewall in the company that i work (day job). Upon speaking  to the admins, they state that they use a popular service (websense) to identify websites that need to be blocked and indicated that your website is in the list. Cant do much, but to visit it at home...but, thought i would let you know.

-Umesh

[neil snape]

Neil,

Not sure why - but your site is blocked by the firewall in the company that i work (day job). Upon speaking  to the admins, they state that they use a popular service (websense) to identify websites that need to be blocked and indicated that your website is in the list. Cant do much, but to visit it at home...but, thought i would let you know.

-Umesh
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=197541\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes that's a bit shocking. There is no SMTP server or any other phishing type of spam mail possible from that site hosted by Amen. Oh well, thanks for the heads up.

[andyheb]

There are instructions, an Action , and a profile to do this.
It resolves the issues at hand for the difficult proofing of CMYK for press. With this method you should be able to get results that rival most rips for inkjets. The topic header is Proofing CMYK for offset.... in the 9180 review on my site.

Let me know if it works for you.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=197534\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Hi Neil

Thanks for your hint. I'm sure that I can use it someday.

For now, I have another question:
In the chapter about neutral B&W printing of your B9180-Review, you write that you no longer have the Z printer. May I ask why?
Didn't the printer deliver the image quality you've expected?

[neil snape]

Hi Neil

Thanks for your hint. I'm sure that I can use it someday.

For now, I have another question:
In the chapter about neutral B&W printing of your B9180-Review, you write that you no longer have the Z printer. May I ask why?
Didn't the printer deliver the image quality you've expected?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=197919\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Not at all, I only have 8m2 to keep all my stuff in. Already with 2 A3+ printers, 5 computers, an A3+ vertical drum scanner (still for sale) it's cramped. I won't keep a 44" again in this space. I'm envious of those who have a 44" or better a 60" but reality check says it's just not good to be too cramped for space.

I since added a second set of Actions for a measured set of Fogra 27 MW2 referenced Adjustment Layers. Visually I prefer the first set, but if the goal is matching numerically a reference control bar then the second set is about as good as you can do with this printer and rgb driver.
It's not a step by step instruction set, yet anyone who is this serious about CM will be able to do this easily. I doubt anyone who doesn't know how to load Actions, or work with standard CM workflow will find it easy. They probably won't need to proof for CMYK then either.

[seangirard]

Neil - I always assumed without a proofing RIP you had to take your rasterized file back to RGB before output. I use Epsons. Is it a special function of the HP driver that it can accept CMYK? Anyway, thanks for the article. Informative as usual.

-sean

[neil snape]

Neil - I always assumed without a proofing RIP you had to take your rasterized file back to RGB before output. I use Epsons. Is it a special function of the HP driver that it can accept CMYK? Anyway, thanks for the article. Informative as usual.

-sean
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=198357\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes nothing new there. You are converting CMYK through the profile PCS (Lab) on towards rgb.
In the end few rips do any device links so they too are sending out CMYK to PCS(Lab 3 channel) back to CMYK, oh lest we not forget about the inter-profiles that convert the 4 colours to 6 or more channels.

In the PS version of the HP Z3100 GP PS the Adobe rip is in fact three colors only even though you can send whatever you want including spot colors.
Adobe and HP find that the three colors actually behave better for inkjets than four colours.
You can do better but the rips that do are very pricey, such as GMG.
Yes you can send CMYK through the driver but it will be converted to rgb for all the recent HP printers.
The pipeline since MacOS 10.3 has offered four channel pipeline but no printer makers have jumped on it, and Windows Vista was supposed to be the same.

So if demand was there, any of the three could push multi channel through the drivers. That and push through 16, 24, 32, even 48 bit data.