Prinect Color Management Equipment User’s Guide. Prinect Color Management. Table of Contents Table of Contents Prinect Signa Station 1 Prinect Color Management 1 Table of Contents 3 Before you start ... About This Documentation . 5 Structure of this Documentation . 5 What you should already know . 5 Symbols and Styles . 6 Important Information . 6 Introduction Introduction . 7 What Role Does Color Management Play in the Print Shop Workflow? . 7 Color space transformations . 8 Standardized offset print process . 12 Color spaces . 13 Spectral color space . 13 CIEL*a*b* color space . 13 RGB color space . 16 CMYK color space . 18 Multicolor color spaces (NChannel color spaces) . 19 Grayscale color spaces . 20 Spot colors . 20 DeviceN . 21 ICC profiles . 21 DeviceLink profiles . 21 Prepare Source Data for the Print Shop Workflow . 22 PDF/X . 22 Handling Preseparated Files . 22 Handling Difficult Source Data . 23 Check of Digital Documents Supplied by the Customer . 23 Color Management in Prinect Manager Color Management in Prinect Manager . 25 Prepare Sequence > "Color Conversion" step . 27 "Color Management" tab . 27 Prinect Color Management – User’s Guide 3 Table of Contents "Device Colors/DeviceLink" tab . 32 Color Management for Digital Printing . 37 General information about color management: . 38 Machine setup using output conditions . 39 "Color settings" tab for toner-based digital presses (Heidelberg Versafire CP, CV) . 39 "Color settings" tab for Primefire 106 presses . 53 "Color settings" tab for Labelfire 340 presses . 63 "Color settings" tab for CTP devices driven as a "Digital Platesetter" . 73 Quality of Color Reproduction in Printing Quality of Color Reproduction in Printing . 85 Ink film thickness . 85 Screen value . 86 Changes in screen value . 87 Dot gain . 92 Printing Characteristic . 93 Relative print contrast . 94 Color balance / Image structure . 95 Color composition . 96 Chromatic reproduction . 96 Achromatic reproduction . 98 Ink trapping and color order . 103 Print control strips . 105 Index Glossary 4 Version 2018 Before you start ... Before you start ... About This Documentation This documentation gives you a brief introduction to general aspects of color management and an overview of how color management is used in the Prinect workflow. We have deliberately not gone into extremely in-depth, technical relations because the focus is to provide users with the information needed to correctly configure and apply the wide range of color management options of the Prinect workflow. You can find detailed information, for example, in the Online Help of the Cockpit (F1 key) or in specialist literature. Note: The Prinect Integration Manager represents the Prinect workflow variant with the i highest integration level. Because this documentation was written not only for the Prinect Integration Manager but also for the Prinect Prepress Manager, the Prinect Pressroom Manager, the Prinect Postpress Manager, the Prinect Digital Front End (Prinect DFE) and the Prinect Production Manager, the general term "Prinect Manager" will be used in this docu- mentation. A specific variant will be mentioned explicitly only in special cases. Structure of this Documentation This documentation describes the range of functions of "Prinect Color Management". You will find information about the following topics in the various chapters: • "Introduction" page 7. This chapter gives you an overview of the basics of color management, for example, color spaces, ICC profiles, spot colors, etc. • "Color Management in Prinect Manager" page 25. This chapter introduces you to the color management settings of the Prinect Manager, for offset printing and for digital printing. • "Quality of Color Reproduction in Printing" page 85. In this chapter, you will find in-depth information that can help you to make sure you have high- quality reproduction of colors throughout the whole print process. The focus here lies on offset printing with CTP plate production. What you should already know We assume that you are familiar with the basic operating procedures in the Prinect Manager and that you know the basics of the prepress workflow. Prinect Color Management – User’s Guide 5 Before you start ... Symbols and Styles The following typographical conventions are used in this manual: • References to other chapters and sections are blue (on the screen) and underlined. Example: See "Symbols and Styles", page 6. Important Information Important information in the text is marked by symbols at the side which are used as follows: Warning: Contains information that must be taken into consideration to protect the user from injury. Caution: Contains information that must be taken into consideration to prevent damage to hardware or software. Note: Contains important general or supplementary information about a specific topic. i Prerequisite: Lists requirements which must be fulfilled before the steps which follow can be performed. 6 Version 2018 Introduction Introduction Introduction . .7 What Role Does Color Management Play in the Print Shop Workflow? . .7 Color space transformations . .8 Standardized offset print process . 12 Color spaces . 13 Spectral color space . 13 CIEL*a*b* color space . 13 RGB color space . 16 CMYK color space . 18 Multicolor color spaces (NChannel color spaces) . 19 Grayscale color spaces . .20 Spot colors . .20 DeviceN . ..