Inkjet Color Proofing

[mseydel]

I simply have to disagree with the thrashing that Inkjets are taking in the above posts. Natobasso, maybe you've had some bad experiences with a workflow without color management. Sure, a matchprint looks sweet, but most of the colors can't be reproduced in a press gamut, so you end up fooling yourself into believing your colors will reproduce when they simply won't. I've worked on projects for some of the top magazines and publishers in the world, and inkjets can produce very accurate, reliable color. Creo's Iris and Veris are very accurate, and the Epson Ultrachrome series is also very good. Word on the street is that the next generation front-end for the Ultrachrome series will be a Mac-native RIP...so no need to invest in an Oris or other RIP.

BTW, you should never convert CMYK to RGB if you can help it. Stay in RGB
if possible till you know what your intended output profile needs to be...

[jwennet]

I stand by the 1520. The last agency I worked at did their initial proofing with an Epson 3000.

As far as coverting CMYK to RGB- it's the only way to print anything close to what you want. The Epson 1280 (and probably some of the other ultra photo printers) will totally mess up CMYK files. Guess they're making life very easy for people with digital cameras, and not pros. I found that InDesign actually took my CMYK files and in program printed them as composite RGB. Must know what's up with the printer profile.

Enough of my rambling. Thanks for the heads up on the new printers.

J

[mseydel]

you can get an Iris 2print for pretty cheap on eBay, but the Brisque RIP and your electric bill will make you sad...

[crydiger]

You'll hardly find an inkjet producing reliable CMYK color proofs without additional RIP software. I have been using an EPSON Stylus Photo 1290 with iProof X PostScript RIP (http://www.iproofsystems.com) for several years unter PageMaker, Freehand, InDesign and others, and the results are quite good, even better than most of those produced by very expensive color lasers. iProof X has different CMYK settings for EVERY SINGLE inkjet printer of most major brands, and all that testing and calibrating just costs some money ... which you'll earn back in just a few weeks if working as a graphics free-lancer like me. Just try their demo.

[opus66]

Most in-house places are migrating over to the Epson Ultra-Chrome series machines.. and you can rest assured, they are not printing rgb images.
Perhaps you should take a look at some of the newer models, as I've heard most of the success coming in the past few months...

The iris/veris printers are good but as another poster pointed out the rip costs, etc.. they're essentially overpriced options aimed at large pre-press shops.

A side note... if you are converting to rgb... i hope that's only for your own proofing process. If you end up supplying the client with rgb files.. they'll end up having them converted by the final prep house who will hit them for conversion and color-match cost all over again.

[jwennet]

I'm looking into the Epson's you've mentioned. Stupid question- any difference between the UltraChrome and the Durabright inks?

As far as RGB- I found out after wasting a lot of paper and ink that the Epson 1280 prints color files accurately from RGB. It totally screws up CMYK files. InDesign has an option in it's print menu for composite RGB printing that seems to handle my CMYK files very well.

Thanks for the reply.

J

[jwennet]

BTW-I'm seriously considering an Epson 1880. Anyone have/use one? More specifically, use it with Quark 6? For some reason, Quark won't see my 1280, and I'd rather not deal with similar issue.

Thanks.

J

[Maceoo]

If you got the moolah, the HP 130 Designjet with EFI's designrip is the way to go.