What are the 6 C’s of color management from Fiery and why do they all matter? Understand the steps involved to attain and maintain great color and how it could be the key to keeping your clients happy and away from the competition, plus a way to attract new business.
CONSISTENCY
Your printer. Consistency is about getting the printer into a “defined state” state. Check which calibration and auto-correction routines are available on your press. Check if the initiation of those is available within your calibration software.
TIP: When choosing your next press, ask the question, what can this new engine do to look after its own color?
Consistency driven by the printer, media and toner/ink quality, and self-calibrating techniques.
- Examples of printer-specific pre-calibration techniques:
- Auto Adjust Gradation
- Auto Correct Color Mismatch
- Auto Image Adjustment
- Shading Correction, etc.
- Pre-calibration techniques can be executed from the printer itself
- Fiery Calibrator includes access to these techniques for many engines to makes it easy to execute them as part of the calibration
CALIBRATION
Get to a targeted state. Look into how many calibrations you have in place. Is it sufficient to cover the different types of media you are using?
TIP: If a media type or weight difference is enough to show a visual color difference, it warrants its own calibration.
Calibration driven by the Fiery Calibrator.
- Included in all Fiery servers
- Fully integrated solution accessible from Fiery Command WorkStation® or Fiery Color Profiler Suite
- Support of new calibration and recalibrations
- Support of inline, handheld, and scanning measurement instruments
- On selected engines, support for: – Gamut extending inks and specialty toners – Fluorescent inks and toners – White
- Support for Idealliance® G7® Grayscale calibration*
* Requires a Fiery Color Profiler Suite license
CHARACTERIZATION
About profiling. Check if you have profile creation software, what features it has, and if those features are sufficient for your profiling needs?
TIP: Don’t underestimate the importance in terms of ease-of-use of color software management that’s integrated with the DFE.
Characterization driven by Fiery Color Profiler Suite.
- Fully integrated color management solution for Fiery Driven printers
- The only tool that can create profiles and configure color management directly on a Fiery digital front end
- Easy-to-use tools get expert-level results from all Fiery driven technologies:
- Cutsheet toner printers
- Wide to superwide inkjet printers
- High-speed inkjet printers
- It extends Fiery server color capabilities to enable:
- ICC profile creation, inspection, and editing
- Color quality assurance
- Output enhancement
CONVERSION
Your DFE (RIP). Check that your DFE has the correct built-in technology for both process and spot color handling, as well as a PDF engine that supports the latest standards.
TIP: Remember a DFE is more than just color conversion, learn about its other color and quality control features to get the very best results. Plus, again, integration — if a DFE has bi-directional communication to the profile creation solution, life gets easier.
Conversion driven by the Fiery digital front end.
- Spot color control
- Fiery SpotOn™, Spot Pro, and TrueBrand™
- Page element quality control
- Fiery Preflight and Postflight
- Image enhancement
- Fiery ImageViewer and Image Enhance Visual Editor
CONTROL
Keeping things in check. Your printers, consumables, and environment will change over time. Get to know how color control software enables you to understand your environment, as well as brings order with calibration and verification schedules.
TIP: Control software also allows you to prove compliance to your customers as it tracks color over time.
Control driven by EFI ColorGuard.
- Schedules and automates the color verification and recalibration process for each Fiery® Driven™ print system
- Allows you to compare colors to a custom reference or industry standard to ensure print production consistency and accuracy
- Allows you to monitor color verification results in real time, and act based on quality trends
CONFORMANCE
About PDF/X-4 conformance. The best color management in the world isn’t going to save you if a PDF element isn't interpreted correctly, and that negatively affects color. PDF conformance certification guarantees correct interpretation of PDF jobs.
TIP: It’s a good idea to certify all your DFE and press combinations to ensure the same quality assurance throughout your print shop.
Conformance driven by the Ghent Workgroup (GWG) and easily achieved with Fiery JobExpert™.
With a PDF Conformance Certification, print shops have a:
- Fantastic marketing tool for print service providers to acquire new customers and bind existing ones
- Comes with certification and labels that can be placed in email signatures and on web pages
- Print shop and owner names appear on the international GWG web page
- Proofs that the print shop can process PDFs perfectly (by honoring transparencies, overprints, use of source profiles, etc.), which is as crucial as being able to meet industry color standards
For more details on the 6 Cs products and services, visit the fiery.efi.com/6Cs or contact Rhyme.