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Bob has bought printing for over 20 years now, and also does photography on the side. Feel free to wander to your minds discontent.

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Monday, September 12, 2005

Complexity of Color: proofing for print

If you haven't read parts one and two about color, it might be a good idea before proceeding with this post. (Man, they were posted last April; I've been a slacker...)

We're talking about the process required for getting the image captured by a camera to be accurately portrayed on a printed page of a book or magazine. We're not concerned at the moment with color reproduction of a photograph. We've seen that the range of colors we can see with our eyes is different than that which can be reproduced by a computer monitor or a printed page. These ranges are represented by the following image:



where the total color blob (a technical term) represents what we see with our eyes, the triangle represents what colors a monitor can reproduce, and the rounded triangle represents the color range that can be reproduced by the four color process printing method.
So...you've have your image digitized and the files converted to cmyk. Now, how do you know what your printed image will end up looking like without the expense of actually making plates and starting up a printing press? (Which, by the way, is done, but mostly when the printing is being done in Asia and/or the printed piece is very color critical.)
This is where the color proof comes in. During the course of a designer putting together a book cover or interior pages that print in color, he and others working with him have seen various preliminary proofs: on their monitor, from a color copy, or from an ink jet printer. The colors viewed on these various mediums will vary for a variety of reasons: is the monitor color calibrated? Are you looking at color copier toner or ink from an ink jet printer on the paper? what kind of paper is the copy being made on? This is one stage of the proofing process that can be "dangerous". Something may look brilliant on your monitor, but flat when printed with toner on a color copier. Or you may like the color copy and show it off, fully expecting that that will be what you will see when the piece is printed. It's almost enough to make one long for the old days...before desktop publishing. Way back then, ten years or so, film houses actually output film after scanning an image. Actually, they output 4 pieces of film (remember cmyk?) to make a proof. A proof made from the actual film that would be used to make the plates would be a very accurate representation of what would be printed on a press. It would have the actual dots:


like this. Of course normally the dots are not visible because they're much smaller.
Now, with the digital age, the printing press still prints with dots, but the proof you're likely to see probably won't contain dots. It (the proof) will most likely be output from a proofing device like an ink jet printer, only a very expensive ink jet printer made to simulate the color you can expect once the job goes on press. The key word there is "simulate". It's not an exact match because it's not made using the dots that will be used on the press. So why not get get the old style proofs made from film? Some companies still do on special jobs. The truth is that film proofs are just too expensive and time consuming. As the digital proofing systems evolve, they get better and better and less expensive.
Oh, and just to make it more interesting, unless you have a viewing booth with color balanced lighting to view your proofs in, you're probably looking at them under florescent lights, which tend to give a green cast to everything. Remember, at some point, pleasing color is subjective...
There's a vast expanse of information on proofing you can find on the Net, but I hope this gives you a little insight into some of the process.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Bob: What if you are scanning an illuminated manuscript, do you have any suggestions on what to do when the light is reflected back on the gold? I have Photoshop and In Design and I was looking for tips as some friends of mine in my sunday school class want to print my Bible that I have been making since 1987, by hand, using pen and ink in Dallas Texas. I have the blessings of the Pope John Paul II and both Anglican Archbishops and its the KJV and you can find me by doing a google search "The Pepper Bible". I'm a methodist, UMC.
http://hometown.aol.com/biblescribe1/biblescribe1/
I have some of the images I made several years ago before I got a good scanner on that webpage to give you an idea of what I am up against. About 80% of the Gospels are illuminated text the whole thing is 600 pages long. I finished the New Testament in 1995 but when 9-11 came along I wanted to make a great bible book a set of Gospels that would knock your socks off and I did.
Most of the verse initials are illuminated and I wrote each chapter in a different historical calligraphic script and decorated them in the same historical style so that most chapters start with a full page illuminated carpet page. Luke is a celtic manuscript like the Bookof Kells but I have a carpet page on almost every chapter and John is a collection of french manuscript styles
Matthew is english styles and Mark is a different style in each chapter. I did this to learn and to share an experience with all of the scibes who wrote the Bible before me and I use my Bible to evangelize. People open up about their faith when they see my Bible, its art and they see that I have faith and they open up.
So I have copper gold and silver on the same page. And I have half of it scanned. I was wondering about whether I should make masks for a separate plate for the gold, silver and copper? and do you have any advice on illuminated manuscripts? My website has a link to a WFAA TV video of me writing the Gospel of Saint Luke chapter 24 on Easter when the Bible was on display at the Museum of Biblical Arts in Dallas in March and April of this year. http://www.wfaa.com/perl/common/video/wmPlayer.pl?title=www.wfaa.com/pronk/050328_1200biblewriter_wz.wmv
There are a couple of Dallas Morning News Articles too.
Sincerely,

James G. Pepper

11/2/05, 5:39 AM  
Blogger Bob said...

James, as far as I know, the gold should scan okay as gold. The decision you have to make is whether you can live with a gold that's made from the mix of the cmyk process colors, or whether you want to go to the expense of printing the gold as a 5th color...or a 6th and 7th color for the silver and copper. Not an inexpensive undertaking. I usually work with professional scanning companies that have come up against most types of problems. I'm working on a book now where the actual painting the artist has done use gold foil. It's not practical to use foil on the text, at least on what we're doing, so we're going with a gold metallic ink.

11/14/05, 3:59 PM  

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