Page 27 - PWM2025_APRIL EBOOK

TECHNOLOGY REPORT

Indigo liquid toner presses sell well into extended gamut require images to be supplied in RGB, and our channels which can be handled sepa-
high-volume photobook service provid- systems manage the extended gamut printing either in the RIP or rately by a RIP. It’s not particularly well
ers because of their excellent quality in DFE. Our Jet Press and Revoria POD systems do use slightly dif- explained in Adobe CC, though PDF
CMYK, even without the wider gamut ferent approaches. Also, the pink toner in our POD presses is used export options in the rival Serif Affinity
but pricier option of HP’s IndiChrome as a fifth colour to extend the gamut.” suite make it easier.
six-colour process inkset. Paul Sherfield, a colour expert who runs The Missing Horse With this in mind, Serendipity
Desktop and wide-format inkjets consultancy, says: “RGB working is nothing new. For photobooks
often have eight or more ink colours and and prints you can run as RGB and print with the maximum Software in Australia has introduced a
are capable of colour quality that knocks gamut. I’ve done quite a lot of work with customers on that and new RGB + Spots Colour Support
spots off litho, though at much slower they can get staggering results. The latest APPE v7 front-end will option for the latest version of its
speeds, but they are often used for com- handle RGB-CMYK and if the CMYK profile takes in the maxi- Blackmagic colour management system,
mercial cover work. mum gamut of the printer, that’s what you’ll get out from it.” Verify soft proofer and MegaRip ren-
Even CMYK-only industrial wide-for- However, he warns “there are problems with PDF/X-4, espe- derer.
mat printers for sign and display work cially outputting to a CMYK colour space. You don’t know what is This is a RIP-server solution originally
often have impressive gamuts and may happening in the RIPs – they may have different settings.” developed for litho proofing on inkjets,
be able to extend them further by using The downside of digital presses is that unlike litho you can’t just that can also handle production on wide-
extra channels to output orange, green slap on any specially mixed ink you want, to print spot colours. So format inkjet. Colour Engine is the UK
or violet inks as extra process colours. digital presses tend to use their wider CMYK gamuts to print col-
For a long time it seemed that digital ours that would require add-on special fifth and six or seventh col- agent.
press makers and users were mainly ours in litho. Jason March at Serendipity Software
interested in downgrading their results The great thing is that you can then get any number of ‘spots’ told Printweek: “The PDF spot colours
to match litho inks made to ISO 12647/2 into the same job, rather than being limited by how many colour are almost always assigned a set of device
standard. units you have, and you don’t need to wash up the colours values based on an assumed CMYK or
The extra gamut was promoted as between jobs. The issue is how to colour-manage the CMYK to be RGB colour space. In most cases when
When CMYK workflow ours that litho can’t manage without ing the digital press to use its full gamut on the spot colours. printing from a desktop app, the spot
predictable (and match to litho if you really want to), while allow-
mainly useful for hitting Pantone col-
colour values are simply rolled into the
extra plates and inks.
Note that more and more digital presses do have fifth and sixth
device colour’s RGB, or in the vast
This makes sense for brands running
colour units with interchangeable colours, but they are generally
majority of cases CMYK, then printed.
hampers more than helps campaigns with lots of different print used for embellishment such as metallics or spot gloss, and there’s is that for a known and defined spot col-
“What Serendipity brings to the table
a strictly limited choice of special colours (some of which can be
assets that may be printed on a variety of
print processes in different print shops
gamut-extenders).
our that’s already in our database, we
and even different countries.
Only HP Indigo offers a wide choice of real spot colours, and its
It’s not relevant where the jobs sell on IndiChrome option is also the only six-colour ECG process set keep that spot colour separate from the
the best possible colour, such as photo available on any digital press. rest of the RGB (or CMYK) process col-
albums, posters, coffee table art books In a news story on Printweek.com last year (15 November our data, then merge it with the final
and the like. 2024), Malcolm Mackenzie, director of colour and automation print output after the rest of the PDF has
Forcing all the workflows into a litho- consultancy Colour Engine, said it was a “chicken and egg” situa- been colour managed. What we have
targeted CMYK standard such as tion if customers do not realise that RGB workflows are an option. now added is that ability to separately
Fogra39 or 51 to match litho, means “Big corporates have understood it, but they are probably still
you’re wasting the quality potential of a sending CMYK to the printer,” he said. colour manage spot channels, while
wide gamut press and you’re not going to “A lot of people are now retouching in RGB, but they still have simultaneously maintaining a fully RGB
get the best possible colour from your an antiquated system where they output the document to PDF workflow from start to finish.”
device. and convert everything to CMYK. Working in RGB is not that big Although Serendipity says this is
So today there’s an argument for keep- a shift for a lot of people,” he added. unique to its software, Sherfield reckons
ing everything in the best colour possi- The dominance of Adobe Creative Cloud from design though to that Adobe’s widely used APPE 7 digital
ble, with the original gamut from the PDF and then to print, has tended to hamper the understanding of front-end can do this too.
digital camera or scanner, and only pro- RGB working options – Adobe assumes that ‘professional print’ “The Blackmagic stuff can all be done
cessing it into separations at the latest always means CMYK (defaulting to the rather outdated Fogra39 with Fiery RIPs. Fiery can be set to say
possible stage, in the digital front-end/ for ‘Euro prepress’) or CMYK plus spots. It defaults to CMYK con- Fogra 39 or 51 for CMYK, with the spots
RIP which can take full advantage of the version when creating PDFs.
available gamut. This is loosely called an You can install more modern Fogra 59 profiles, which can take set to maximum gamut. So you could
RGB workflow. advantage of the wider CMYK gamuts of many current digital match your digital job to litho ISO
For instance John Davies, workflow printers, but it’s not particularly intuitive. 12647/2 and still get around 600,000
product group manager at Fujifilm, says, Likewise you can opt to maintain RGB based images and layouts spots that hit 95% of the Pantone col-
“All of our systems that print in an in PDF generation, while preserving spot colours as separate ours.”

www.printweekmena.com April 2025 PrintWeek MENA 27