Setting up for printing on a digital printing press

[enduser]

Your "Alone in a  Crowd" edition is so good that it makes color seem irrelevant.

[nirpat89]

Your "Alone in a  Crowd" edition is so good that it makes color seem irrelevant.

+1.  Wow!

[Alan Goldhammer]

Your "Alone in a  Crowd" edition is so good that it makes color seem irrelevant.

+1 also and a question.  The cover photo does not have a caption but looks very much like the escalators in the Washington DC Metro system with the raised metal bumps to prevent ambitious folk from sliding down the center of the escalator.  Is this a photo of one of the stops and if so which one?  I'm guessing maybe Dupont Circle.

[Jim Kasson]

Your "Alone in a  Crowd" edition is so good that it makes color seem irrelevant.

Thank you very much.

[Jim Kasson]

+1 also and a question.  The cover photo does not have a caption but looks very much like the escalators in the Washington DC Metro system with the raised metal bumps to prevent ambitious folk from sliding down the center of the escalator.  Is this a photo of one of the stops and if so which one?  I'm guessing maybe Dupont Circle.

You are correct. It is Dupont Circle. Take a look at page 38.

[Ernst Dinkla]

I’ve heard for years that it was possible to load the Indigo with a black and two or three grays, but that no one was commercially doing it, because “ there was no market big enough” to devote to it.
And it seemed to me at the time that that isn’t correct,  surely someone could specialize in that and have a global market, but I never found one.

 Maybe one of these guys are doing it now. But like Andrew says if they won’t send you proofs to evaluate I wouldn’t trust it. But if I were doing a project like that I’d be willing to pay for the preliminary tests if I were convinced they could do it.

It seems to me if a book publisher WAS into high-end bw on demand book publishing they would have samples to send to you before you get into testing your own material. I would also assume it would cost more than cmyk full color books.

John

One of the problems is that Indigo print shops have contracts with for example Blurb and they have to comply to a certain print standard as Blurb wants the printing all over the world to be the same. For example this company has facilities in the EU and US and I have it from first hand that a B&W solution does not fit their goals for that reason. If you can persuade Blurb there is more chance than by going to the printers themselves. If Blurb etc asks for a quality like that and promises enough volume for the printers they will install an Indigo for that task readily. Which would contribute a lot to to our culture in my opinion. Bringing back the quality of intaglio sheet fed or offset duo tone B&W printing for small runs would be wonderful. Sometimes I buy photo books of the 50's made with rotogravure and they can already have a very nice quality.

This publisher goes a long way in creating books, duotone included:
https://mackbooks.co.uk/products/the-model-br-torbjorn-rodland
They asked me to measure the offset papers too for OBA content and to get near the inkjet paper white as used by some of their photographer clients.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[deanwork]

You are so right and all Blurb would have to do is support one or two shops to just specialize in that.
I’m shocked someone hasn’t done it. Imagine what could be done with quadtone etc and it would be So much easier and faster than offset with outstanding quality and at a price point that offset couldn’t offer.

One of the problems is that Indigo print shops have contracts with for example Blurb and they have to comply to a certain print standard as Blurb wants the printing all over the world to be the same. For example this company has facilities in the EU and US and I have it from first hand that a B&W solution does not fit their goals for that reason. If you can persuade Blurb there is more chance than by going to the printers themselves. If Blurb etc asks for a quality like that and promises enough volume for the printers they will install an Indigo for that task readily. Which would contribute a lot to to our culture in my opinion. Bringing back the quality of intaglio sheet fed or offset duo tone B&W printing for small runs would be wonderful. Sometimes I buy photo books of the 50's made with rotogravure and they can already have a very nice quality.

This publisher goes a long way in creating books, duotone included:
https://mackbooks.co.uk/products/the-model-br-torbjorn-rodland
They asked me to measure the offset papers too for OBA content and to get near the inkjet paper white as used by some of their photographer clients.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

[GeraldD]

Hi Per
It's been some years since I worked pre-press in digital or litho but a couple of possible options:
For digital (Indigo) create a CMYK range of 30c, 20m, 20y, 90k. A little trial and error to get neutral grey. And check the printers workflow doesn't force the colours back to more conventional proportions.
Litho 2 (or 3) spot colours Black and 1 or 2 greys might not be that much different in cost to digital for 100 copies of multi page A4(?). The real issue is finding a printer that this type of work suits the equipment they use. Most will have a 4 or 5 colour press and will charge accordingly even if only 2 colours, some smaller printers may have a 2 colour press (and nearly half the price).
Relatively few commercial print shops will have ICC profiles for their presses, digital or litho.
Try to talk to a couple of printers or pre-press people about what you are trying to achieve. If you can find someone who understands the problem you are part way to the solution.
Good luck with the project
Gerald

[digitaldog]

For digital (Indigo) create a CMYK range of 30c, 20m, 20y, 90k.

Using (one) of my Indigo profiles, that is pretty neutral: Lab values 17/1/0, RGB (ProPhoto): 31/31/30.
Other profiles?

[perbjesse]

Thanks Gerald for the informative answer! Just what I was looking for.

Questions:
1) I assume that what you are proposing is to map grey values to CMYK with maximum black having the value you suggest. When printing B/W using quadtone rip I create curves for each color (black, two greys, cyan, light cyan, magenta, light magenta, yellow) that does a complex mapping of the grey value to particular values for the eight inks. What kind of mapping would you suggest here? How would you do this mapping in photoshop?

2) The idea to talk to prepress people about this kind of stuff is a really good one. Where would one find a forum to discuss something like this? Where do those guys hang out?

Regards,
-Per

Hi Per
It's been some years since I worked pre-press in digital or litho but a couple of possible options:
For digital (Indigo) create a CMYK range of 30c, 20m, 20y, 90k. A little trial and error to get neutral grey. And check the printers workflow doesn't force the colours back to more conventional proportions.
Litho 2 (or 3) spot colours Black and 1 or 2 greys might not be that much different in cost to digital for 100 copies of multi page A4(?). The real issue is finding a printer that this type of work suits the equipment they use. Most will have a 4 or 5 colour press and will charge accordingly even if only 2 colours, some smaller printers may have a 2 colour press (and nearly half the price).
Relatively few commercial print shops will have ICC profiles for their presses, digital or litho.
Try to talk to a couple of printers or pre-press people about what you are trying to achieve. If you can find someone who understands the problem you are part way to the solution.
Good luck with the project
Gerald

[Waker]

You might want to contact
http://meridianprinting.com/services/printing/
https://brilliant-graphics.com/services/
Both these places have HP Indigos and it seems they can print B&W with monochrome ink sets.

I've had a number of offset book printed in various parts of the world, got a quote from Meridian, and let's just say I thought it was a typo.  They are insanely expensive. For that matter all offset printing in the USA is very very expensive compared to even very high labor cost European countries (Germany, Italy, great printers with very latest UV Heidelberg presses). Asked many people why this is, everybody agrees, nobody has an answer.

Of course the gap is even bigger when it comes to Asia vs USA.
But maybe you are privately wealthy and none of this matters!

This is for offset, ymmv for Indigo.

[nirpat89]

I was wondering....if the printing service does not provide an icc profile, could one not be made by sending out a target file to print, then creating a profile with the respective spectrophotometer from the resulting print.  Then before sending out an image to print, do a Convert to Profile with that profile?  Am I missing something?

:Niranjan.

[digitaldog]

I was wondering....if the printing service does not provide an icc profile, could one not be made by sending out a target file to print, then creating a profile with the respective spectrophotometer from the resulting print.  Then before sending out an image to print, do a Convert to Profile with that profile?  Am I missing something?

:Niranjan.

All depends on process control. If the target printed today for a profile, and one printed a week later have an average deltaE of 7, well that's not good. You can't profile a moving target....

[Jim Kasson]

All depends on process control. If the target printed today for a profile, and one printed a week later have an average deltaE of 7, well that's not good. You can't profile a moving target....

When I did Staccato, Hemlock Press told me they calibrated their presses to GRACoL2006. I found a GRACoL2006 ICC profile that I thought fit the paper I was using, but I was unable to find one with the UV coating that was a 5th "ink" in the process I selected (a 6th was a spot color that I used for some of the text). I found that the profile lay entirely within the gamut of the Epson 4900 with Exhibition Fiber that I was using for hard proofing. I mapped the image colors to lie within the GRACoL2006 gamut, and converted the images to GRACoL2006 and back to working RGB to make sure. Then I proofed them on the Epson 4900. Then I asked Hemlock for proofs of some of the images. My Epson proofs weren't an exact match for the real offset proofs, but they were close enough that I felt reasonably confident in my editing of the images for the book. I was unable to attend the press run, but I sent a photographer whose eyes I trust to supervise the on-press tweaks.

I was happy with the way the book came out. Of course, the images aren't as good as the inkjet exhibition prints from the series.

Jim

[GeraldD]

Hi Per
I'm just catching up again.
I don't know where you are based, but are you thinking about printing locally? If so try sending the job spec out and see what sort of response you get back, you might get lucky and get a relevant conversation going. Or do you know anyone in graphic design that works regularly with local printers. Some companies will only deal with very straightforward / undemanding CMYK work and just churn out volume. Ideally you want a company that is able to deal with custom colours and has the understanding of their own workflow software to control specialised workflow.
As you are familiar with photo inkjet printing and RIPs then you appreciate the secret sauce that each printer manufacturer puts into their workflow, the workflow and software within litho prepress is just as convoluted (if not more so). Any solution offered by one person may not hold true for the final print company.

I have just had a quick look and found https://printplanet.com with a wide range of forums.

A quick look for "speciality BW book printers" yielded a selection of book publishers (and many others). Their are a lot of independent publishers and printers offering short run book printing. A bit of digital leg work should give you an idea of quality levels if they are showing off their customers work.
Even a trawl through local library or book shop at niche B&W work might give you some ideas for printers.
Get samples if possible and even spend a bit on a test print before committing could save a lot of stress.
Hope this helps more than confuses!
Gerald

[perbjesse]

Hi Per
I'm just catching up again.
I don't know where you are based, but are you thinking about printing locally? If so try sending the job spec out and see what sort of response you get back, you might get lucky and get a relevant conversation going. Or do you know anyone in graphic design that works regularly with local printers. Some companies will only deal with very straightforward / undemanding CMYK work and just churn out volume. Ideally you want a company that is able to deal with custom colours and has the understanding of their own workflow software to control specialised workflow.
As you are familiar with photo inkjet printing and RIPs then you appreciate the secret sauce that each printer manufacturer puts into their workflow, the workflow and software within litho prepress is just as convoluted (if not more so). Any solution offered by one person may not hold true for the final print company.

I have just had a quick look and found https://printplanet.com with a wide range of forums.

A quick look for "speciality BW book printers" yielded a selection of book publishers (and many others). Their are a lot of independent publishers and printers offering short run book printing. A bit of digital leg work should give you an idea of quality levels if they are showing off their customers work.
Even a trawl through local library or book shop at niche B&W work might give you some ideas for printers.
Get samples if possible and even spend a bit on a test print before committing could save a lot of stress.
Hope this helps more than confuses!
Gerald

Thanks Gerald. I will follow your suggestions and do some legwork.