Making the move from ColorBurst X-ProofPlus to Overdrive & Color Settings advice

[sngraphics]

I had a few questions and needed a little input/advice to make sure this will go OK.

I am in the midst of trying to set up the workflow I will be going with for the next number of years.
Hardware, Software, color settings etc. Most of these are in place.
The newest of these (and I believe most important) is the RIP.

Most of the work I do here is to prepare artwork for resale in our bookstore. (In-House)
Accuracy is important but more so consistency because I reprint the same artwork over and over for different orders.
The odd time I will send jobs out to offset printers using their press profiles in the RIP.
(so far with X-Proof this has been working perfectly!)

I do have a library of images prepared with the "old" workflow but it will be growing much more this year working in the "new" workflow.
I understand with the switch current images will look different being reproduce in the "new" workflow but the emphasis is on the images I will be preparing going forward.
Probably just tweaking the previous ones for the new workflow.

Whatever In-House work I do usually stays in AdobeRGB 1998 (Photoshop).
Work that goes out is of course in CMYK. (profile usually provided by the printer)
All my work is done in Photoshop, placed in InDesign, then output to the RIP and printed on 7900.

My AdobeCS6 color settings are as follows.(below Screenshot)


My RIP settings (till now with X-Proof) are as follows.(below Screenshot)


-My belief till now has been that the AdobeCS & X-Proof/Overdrive RIP color settings had to match. (advice from a friend)

-Is this the "correct" way of working for this Photoshop-InDesign-Rip setup?

-Should I continue this setup going forward with Overdrive?

-Also any comments or suggestions on the actual AdobeCS Color Settings/Selections would be much appreciated.


Apologies for the long post.

[Scott Martin]

As someone who's started converting my clients using XProof over to Overdrive, I find the transition very easy, the results to be virtually identical, and Overdrive to be much faster and more capable. If you're ripping postscript content (like that from InDesign and Illustrator) Overdrive is a great way to go. If your just sending photos then there's not a lot of reason to use Overdrive unless the nesting capabilities are needed.

As for your working space profiles, I'd recommend ditching the older "US Web Coated SWOP v2" profile for the newer "Web Coated SWOP 2006 Grade 3 paper" profile for generic SWOP conversion, and "Dot Gain 20%" for grayscale files instead of gamma 1.8 for prepress work. In ColorBurst, turn off Black Point compensation for the CMYK space so as to simulate press black density. And for press proofing consider a press proofing aper like Epson's Proofing White Semimatte.

[sngraphics]

As someone who's started converting my clients using XProof over to Overdrive, I find the transition very easy, the results to be virtually identical, and Overdrive to be much faster and more capable. If you're ripping postscript content (like that from InDesign and Illustrator) Overdrive is a great way to go. If your just sending photos then there's not a lot of reason to use Overdrive unless the nesting capabilities are needed.

Thank you for providing your personal/professional experience on this. Very valuable.
I was on the fence for almost a year before making the move to Overdrive earlier this month.
Mostly because I was waiting to sell our copy of X-Proof to cover the costs of Overdrive, but no luck, and I couldn't wait any longer.

After a number of test prints I've done I agree, the results are similar between the 2 RIPs.
Because I was using a custom profile in X-Proof I'm seeing a little difference between the two.
Prints are a little cooler with Overdrive using the "standard" profile.
I also made a custom profile for Overdrive which then "warms" the prints up a bit and they actually come out closer to my X-Proof prints with the custom profile.

All this brings me to my big question.(at least for me it is)
Is it worthwhile to create custom profiles for Overdrive or should we be using the supplied profiles?
Have you tried making custom profiles?   Have you seen any benefits in using one over the other?
(should/could this turn into a separate topic for the forums?)

As for your working space profiles, I'd recommend ditching the older "US Web Coated SWOP v2" profile for the newer "Web Coated SWOP 2006 Grade 3 paper" profile for generic SWOP conversion, and "Dot Gain 20%" for grayscale files instead of gamma 1.8 for prepress work. In ColorBurst, turn off Black Point compensation for the CMYK space so as to simulate press black density. And for press proofing consider a press proofing aper like Epson's Proofing White Semimatte.

Again, I really do thank you for your recommendations.
Like I mentioned earlier, pretty much all of my Internal work is done in AdobeRGB 1998.
By making these changes to my Overdrive "Input Profile" settings, will this affect my RGB images workflow/output in any way?


Just asking because when I was on the phone with Colorburst last week they recommended that I change my "CMYK Image" settings under "Input Profiles" in the RIP to ColorBurst GRACoL G7.icc, Absolute Colorimetric, with BPC off.
I appreciated the advice and have been doing test prints with the "new" settings and my "old" settings.
From what I've seen, all the test prints with the "new" settings come out a little "washed out" as compared to prints using my old settings of "US Sheetfed Coated v2", Relative Colorimetric, with BPC on.
I especially notice the difference in the darker colors and especially the blacks. My "old settings" seem more "saturated", "darker".

Why would the colors print differently after changing just the CMYK settings in the RIP and all my test prints consist of only RGB images placed in InDesign and sent to the RIP?
(note: this is without making any changes in the Adobe color settings yet)

Should the AdobeCS color settings match the Overdrive "Input Profiles" settings?
examples below: "Web Coated SWOP 2006 Grade 3 paper" and turning off BPC in both AdobeCS and the RIP?




When making the above changes to the Adobe CS6 color settings does this affect my existing RGB images in any way?

Also what is your recommendation for the Rendering Intent to be used in both Adobe & RIP?


It's not that I am afraid of change in any way but when it comes to color and also that things have been working pretty good the past few years you can understand my "hesitation" before committing.

[sngraphics]

Matching Adobe CS settings to the Overdrive settings in previous post.

[Scott Martin]

After a number of test prints I've done I agree, the results are similar between the 2 RIPs.
Because I was using a custom profile in X-Proof I'm seeing a little difference between the two.
Prints are a little cooler with Overdrive using the "standard" profile. I also made a custom profile for Overdrive which then "warms" the prints up a bit and they actually come out closer to my X-Proof prints with the custom profile.

So that tells us there's a difference between your profiles. It doesn't tell us anything about the two RIPs. If you were to make custom profiles in the exact same manner for both RIPs and comparer the results, THAT would tell us something about how the two compare along with how they antialias small text, render postscript data, RIP times, etc.

Is it worthwhile to create custom profiles for Overdrive or should we be using the supplied profiles?
Have you tried making custom profiles?   Have you seen any benefits in using one over the other?

Oh god yes. Overdrive, by the way, doesn't come with any printer profiles. You either use the OEM ones that are installed with the driver or you make your own. [hint: If you care about what's you're doing you make you own or have really excellent profiles made for you.]

(should/could this turn into a separate topic for the forums?)

The rest of the questions you've asked should be on another thread - or taken off the forum altogether. You've got my recommendations for Overdrive's color settings. If you really want to master all of this with a RIP you might consider a private consultation/training session. There's a lot to color management and a lot more dialog is required than we can do here to provide the right answers to your questions.

[sngraphics]

If you were to make custom profiles in the exact same manner for both RIPs and comparer the results, THAT would tell us something about how the two compare along with how they antialias small text, render postscript data, RIP times, etc.

Yes. You're right. And I'm going to try this, now that I have both RIPs.
I will use i1Profiler & i1Pro(UVcut), same # of patches, same options, etc. Will be printing on Epson 7900.
Just one concern. i1Profiler sees X-Proof as a CMYK printer and Overdrive as an RGB printer.
Will this be an issue when trying to compare the 2 RIPs?

Oh god yes. Overdrive, by the way, doesn't come with any printer profiles. You either use the OEM ones that are installed with the driver or you make your own. [hint: If you care about what's you're doing you make you own or have really excellent profiles made for you.]

Yes, that's what I meant. The profiles provided by Epson's driver.

The rest of the questions you've asked should be on another thread - or taken off the forum altogether. You've got my recommendations for Overdrive's color settings.

My apologies for all the questions. I will try to stay on topic.
It's just that when I applied your recommendations in the RIP my prints containing just RGB images (placed in InDesign) came out noticeably "lighter, washed out".
This seemed very strange considering that just the CMYK input profile settings were changed.

If you really want to master all of this with a RIP you might consider a private consultation/training session. There's a lot to color management and a lot more dialog is required than we can do here to provide the right answers to your questions.

If it's OK, I may take you up on your offer.
I will at least contact you to ask for your consultation rates.
Thank You.

[sngraphics]

I have been searching the web for this answer, but I couldn't find out if X-Proof Plus will work on OSX 10.7 or 10.8?
If anyone has tried to install X-Proof Plus past 10.6 and would like to answer this it would be much appreciated.
Someone asked me about this earlier today but I'm still on 10.6 and couldn't give them an answer.

Thank you.

[Scott Martin]

I've seen some unresolved issues on 10.7 and 10.8 - I'd keep it on 10.6 if you can, or move to Overdrive and the latest drivers for your printers.

[sngraphics]

By making these changes to my Overdrive "Input Profile" settings, will this affect my RGB images workflow/output in any way?

Just asking because when I was on the phone with Colorburst last week they recommended that I change my "CMYK Image" settings under "Input Profiles" in the RIP to ColorBurst GRACoL G7.icc, Absolute Colorimetric, with BPC off.
I appreciated the advice and have been doing test prints with the "new" settings and my "old" settings.
From what I've seen, all the test prints with the "new" settings come out a little "washed out" as compared to prints using my old settings of "US Sheetfed Coated v2", Relative Colorimetric, with BPC on.
I especially notice the difference in the darker colors and especially the blacks. My "old settings" seem more "saturated", "darker".

Why would the colors print differently after changing just the CMYK settings in the RIP and all my test prints consist of only RGB images placed in InDesign and sent to the RIP?
[/size][/b](note: this is without making any changes in the Adobe color settings yet)

After excellent tech support from ColorBurst I believe we can answer these questions and provide a little insight to how Overdrive works.
All the answers and info were provided from Larry at ColorBurst and with permission are offered here to anyone interested.
If you already knew all this great. If not, I hope this info helps. It greatly helped me!

The answers were provided in separate emails and separated below by dashed lines.
There may be a little repetition in some of the answers because I did not edit any of them, just pasted as is.
Please comment if any of this info did help, or to offer any other info, observations or opinions on this topic.
Thank you.

-------------
Depending how you create a Job to print, your RGB images may be getting changed to CMYK before Overdrive gets the file.
Properly saved, the RGB data will Never be dependent on the settings of the CMYK Input Profile.

From your App, Save as a PDF with the settings of:
- High Quality Print
- PDF Standard = None
- PDF Format = 1.6

These settings will leave your RGB images as RGB.
They will not be converted to CMYK and therefore they do not reference your CMYK Input Profile.

-------------
The above settings:
- leaves Pantones as Pantone (not process color)
- embedded profiles stay embedded (printing from the App loses the embedded profiles)
- RGB and CMYK stay in their original colorspace
- transparencies stay live (not flattened).
 
Save these files to our Hot Folder or to a Folder to drag to the Job list.

-------------
Now that I understand that you are placing RGB images in your InDesign docs, I can explain a bit more.
If your RGB Images are placed TIFFs or JPegs, then printing from an Application may change the data to CMYK.
The settings above indicate that no color changes should take place and in most, but not all cases, there will be no change.
Even though the RGB color is not being changed to CMYK they will lose their embedded ICC Profiles.
Printing to PostScript does not include embedded Profiles because the PostScript language does not define them as part of the PostScript file, therefore they are discarded.
Printing to PostScript will also flatten transparencies. This is due to the fact that the PostScript format predates the existence of transparent data.
When you have an RGB Tiff and a CMYK dropped shadow, these are typically a transparent blend of different colorspace elements.
Printing will flatten these to the CMYK document colorspace. This causes the RGB image to become CMYK and therefore it will lack in its color richness.
Or worse, the RGB & CMYK intersection will be one color and the rest of the RGB image, that is outside the intersection box, will be another color.

-------------
Saving to a first generation PDF with the settings of High Quality Print, PDF Standard = None, and PDF Format of 1.6
leaves all embedded profiles in the document and all transparent elements in their original colorspace (LIVE) for Overdrive to resolve.
Overdrive does an  excellent job of handling the intersection of different colorspaced transparent elements and it will correctly
locate and use the embedded ICC Profiles if our Use Embedded option is ON.