Paper Surface Affects Color

I recently made a profile for Howard Linen by Neenah. I profiled it through a Creo Spire workflow to a Xerox 6060. Even though the paper is meant for double sided printing the fibers of the paper are different on both sides. This causes the toner to lay down differently on each side. This affects color. A couple of notes in case you are not acostomed to profiling through Creo. You have to build a new calibration for your media. then when you send a CMYK profiling testchart through the RIP make sure you send it through a “Direct” pathway. This will bypass any color management – even though there is a choice for ICC profile. Once the profile is built you have to import it back into the RIP. This is not an issue if you have a .icc extension. I taught a course for X-Rite and Creo about a year and half ago all about this and wonder how manyare actually building profiles. John Gilbert would know.

Eye-One Spectrophotometer

Eye-One Spectrophotometer
Originally uploaded by colorcritical.

It is very difficult to control color without measuring it. This is why I would really never do any digital color reproduction without a spectrophotometer like the X-Rite i1. Here the i1 is on it’s scan table ready to can a line of ink on paper.

I basically build a profile anytime I see a color drift. By calibrating and or profiling I can account for drift. Devices tend to drift in their subjective reproduction of RGB and CMYK . It is also important to remember RGB and CMYK are just values devices use to produce a color. The colors those values produce is what a color manager is most interested in and the best way to get these values is with a color measuring instrument. More info can be found at X-Rite Photo.com