How to make the relationship between application software and RIP output software

abstract:
â—Ž Use color management to obtain correct color settings â—Ž Reduce the number of nodes for vector camera, increase the working speed of RIP â—Ž Correct file settings to avoid unnecessary waste

Workers accompany the large-scale plotters to wait for output all the time, and repeatedly take out the completed printing to perform post-processing of the finished product. When we wait for the plotter to print, or you will pursue a good time in the past. Why do we always remember the time spent in a postscript file for a work day and accompany a plotter?

Part of the reason is that the appeal of digital printing comes from a sense of accomplishment, especially when it comes to satisfying the satisfaction of the images you design on the screen, and it is smoothly displayed by the output of large-scale plotters. This represents the meaning; you have sought an impeccable solution. But in some respects, drawing a picture file is as simple as a fast-running sensor program and a stable interpretation software - RIP. The next step is very smooth. However, to make a perfect image still needs a little helper item. When you enter the large-scale graphics output market, you first purchase the plotter and output interpretation software - RIP equipment, and purchase a Mac or PC host computer, install the application software for video output all programs. You may be tempted to realize that this is not a simple open file. Press Control-P and wait for the plotter to output a beautiful image.

Therefore, the author here would like to discuss some of the dilemmas of producing perfect image patterns.

Correspondence of color

The most common problem is that the customer complains that the output color is different from the color of the screen! "Color is a very subjective thing. The general artist designer bases his color selection on the colors he sees on the screen and in the book. As a large-size inkjet output business, your job is to The correct ink is used to reproduce the visual image on the material, but the choice of the correct ink and correct material is not simple, but don't forget that you have a good helper - the color leader:

Before the author explained how to use the CMS system, we quickly took over the CMS operation. This may be a bit complicated, but please be patient and listen to me. The CMS color profile is a text file describing the operation of a specific device (scanner, display, or plotter). If the CMS knows the operating conditions of a particular device, it knows how to change the device's input (eg, the scanner), Display (such as a monitor) or output (such as a plotter) to improve the color inaccuracy of this device.

When you output a file, the plotter uses the ink colors of M, Y, C, and K. Therefore, any RGB image must be converted to CMYK. However, the colors that RGB can produce far exceed those of CMYK. Therefore, the conversion of RGB has a great correlation with the color of CMYK ink used.

From the scanner's color profile, the CMS knows the scanner's color error. It can also read the scanned raw data to know the scanner's input. By reading the original scan using its data obtained from scanning the color profile, the CMS can determine the final scan and create a perfect image. The plotter's color profile is used to understand the plotter's color error, which in turn prints the correct image quality for printing. Still further, if you do the color profile of the monitor, the CMS will also know where the color error is! When an image is displayed on the screen, the CMS that has modified the image based on the scan color profile can determine the displayed data (based on the monitor's color profile) to determine the correctness of the color.

How can we put theory into practice?

PhotoShop 5

When you use PhotoShot5, it is important to choose the right RGB working environment. I don't elaborate on the differences between the options. If you are using version 5.0.2, you must select the Adobe RGB (1998) work environment in RGB Settings (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Select Adobe Photoshop's RGB mode. Select Adobe RGB (1998), SMPTE-240M, or Wide Gamut RGB. Make sure that Display Using Monitor Compensation is checked and that the color profile written with Adobe Gamma appears next to Monitor.

If you use version 5.0, the Adobe RGB (1998) name is SMPTE240M will establish the PhotoShop5 operating environment. Since you will make color choices based on the on-screen display, PhotoShop's CMS must understand the status of your monitor. This process is accomplished by creating a monitor color profile.

PhotoShop has a control panel for Adobe Gamma. You can use the Wizard to perform Adobe Gamma to answer each question guided by the dialog box, use the slide menu and save it as a CMS color profile. When you turn on "Display Using Monitor Compensation", PhotoShop will correct your monitor (Figure 1).

I found that sending CMYK images from PhotoShop to the plotter was better than sending RGB images. Therefore, you had to convert RGB images to CMYK images in PhotoShop. To have PhotoShop's CMS correct the plotter, you must create a color profile for the plotter with the ink set and output consumables, or you can get the color profile from the plotter, ink, or material manufacturer. (available through the vendor's website)

This color profile is located in the CMYK Setup dialog box (Figure 2). Change the CMYK Model to ICC and enter the name of the correct color profile (Figure 2) so that when you convert RGB to CMYK in PhotoShop, you will make the correct final CMYK image.
Figure 2: To calibrate the plotter, you must obtain the output color profile from the manufacturer. After installation, CMYK setup will be imported into Photoshop. Changing CM YK Modal to ICC will let the Color Explorer system do RGB and CMYK conversions.

Color Explorer RIP

If you have a RIP with a color controller, you may find that sending RGB images is better than sending CMYK images. At this point, you need to enter the color profile of your plotter, ink set and consumables. The RIP will detect the status of the drawing and use the default original image data as the calibration basis for the plotter. The correct color of the plot output is corrected through the output color profile of the RIP Color Explorer system.
Although color correspondence may be the biggest problem, it is not the only problem. When you use Adobe
When Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand or CorelDRAW and other software applications, you may encounter problems, we will discuss some of the problems; when you analyze the printing problem, you must consider PostScrip, Postscript is a set of math and geometry to determine the content The equation, RIP, interprets the equation as a bitmap file and tells the plotter how to output the final image. Therefore, as much as possible, the RIP work is done in the production of drawings. The processing rooms used by the major RIPs are interpreted according to the complexity of the files. Therefore, attention and planning should be added to the establishment of the drawings.

Figure 3: The first blue dot on the graph is the start and end of the mathematical equation. It tells RIP how to draw this plot. The two circles are the same, but the left side is drawn with fewer dots. Therefore, the left circle has fewer mathematical expressions and it is easier to handle the illustration.

Another issue is the number of points involved. Each pattern of any drawing tool is made up of dots, lines, and faces. The simplest explanation is that each point is the beginning and end of a mathematical equation. The more points in a pattern, the more equations there are, and the more difficult it is to solve (Figure 3). Therefore, you must simplify the mathematical equation, that is, reduce the number of points.

In addition to this problem, each object belonging to a vector can be plotted and output. If the output of the drawing is a pattern, the printing will be complicated.

Figure 4: This is a complex vector datum diagram to be used to fill up another vector datum object. When alone, the drawing of this object is very simple. When repeatedly copied many times, the difficulty increases.

Another way of thinking: If the same pattern is used to repeatedly fill the already complex image (Figure 4), the final image will be extremely complicated and the interpretation process will take a very long time.

Figure 5: The figure on the left is filled with graphical representations made up of vector reference objects repeated multiple times. The picture on the right is the reorganized version on the right. Since the vector reference object is more difficult to image than the lattice object, the circle on the left is harder to image than the circle on the right. When reorganizing vector reference objects to simplify imaging, make sure that you are based on the resolution rules described. These colors have been set to be used only when plotting.

How to solve it? It's simple - convert this complex filled object into an object. Most image applications allow you to reassemble objects filled with patterns into lattices or output in a TIFF lattice format. To export these objects as TIFF files, simply remove the object and replace it with a new TIFF file. For RIP, bitmaps are much easier to process than vectors (Figure 5). When making a dot matrix image, you must set it according to the image resolution rules described in the image editing section of this article.

Image editing

When you work in an image editing tool, such as Adobe PhotoShop, or when you want to enlarge an image scan into a large poster, there are some important points to keep in mind:

First of all, keep the color correction plan described earlier.

Second, make sure that your image has the correct resolution to support the output of the plotter. According to the author's experience of 150-300 dpi per inch, due to differences in writing heads, consumables, ink sets, and plotters, you must first test to determine the correct resolution. The image resolution is related to the image size scaling; when the image size is doubled, the resolution is halved. When you reduce the image by 50%, the resolution will double.

Figure 6: The two items in the PhotoShop Image Size dialog box show the same file size, but the output print size and resolution are different. The left image has a resolution of 300 dpi, but when zoomed in, the resolution drops to 100 dpi - not enough for output

Remember, 150-300 dpi does the test print size resolution. To scan 200% of the original image, when outputting, the original image and fixed image resolution must be doubled (Figure 6).

Another important point is the cutting path. If you go back to make the object or background behind the image visible, you must have a cutting path. You can use the pen tool to easily create the Bezier curve of the image frame.

Figure 7: There are fewer clipping paths around the guitar on the left than on the right. The smaller the number of points, the smaller the number of mathematical formulas, which means that the imaging is simpler.

The important point is that this clipping path is the same as the one you use to create objects. RIP interprets the mathematical formula of the path, then interprets the image and discards the things outside the path. Therefore, the process of creating the image file should keep the path. Simple. In particular, keep in mind that the fewer points, the simpler the formula (Figure 7).
Layout

Layout is one of the most complex programs. Although we have all kinds of objects in the program here, we have not encountered much problem. In fact, there are two problems to solve - missing catalogs and rotating images.

Figure 8: Executing Markzware's FlightCheck on a QuarkXpress file reveals three canned fonts and 103 missing images. This reminds the user to install missing fonts and search to re-link all the pictures.

A layout of a complete file can be seen as a list of output to be printed