Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Keith R." 


One of the problems with these printers is that they always seem to
cheap out on the control software/hardware. Then they cheap out on the
color management aspects. If I remember corectly Lulu uses a Xerox
iGen3 printer, but they make no mention (last time I checked about a
year ago) of the software that drives the printer. I know that if they
had chosen the EFI RIP (and use it the way it is designed to be used),
that colormanagement would be pretty simple and integrated, and that
they could get a K only profiled workflow (heavy GCR to linear GCR)
along with a stocastic dot pattern to give near "photographic" output.
Yes that may be stretching things a bit because the dot size is still
pretty big.

If you can find a printer that does use a real CMYK workflow, then you
might get good results by changing your image into the CMYK space that
they use, and making sure that it is all in the K channel (assuming
"neutral" output is desired).

I kind of gave up on the idea of building up a service like this as I
will likely never have the money needed for the equipment, and the
market is pretty limited, so it would be difficult to pay off a loan.
The affordable CMYK laser printers don't really have the dot sizes and
patterns needed to offer this type of service, and most don't have any
RIPs to help make the workflow easy.

If they will do short runs on the Heidelberg press, you might want to
check pricing from these guys:
http://www.imagers.com/digiprint/pressGEN.html
Also check for other places that use the Heidelberg press to get away
from the electrostatic/electrophotographic process (photocopiers and
laser printers). However in their FAQ it says they have pleasing color
only output, which means they do not really pay much attention to the
color management aspects, and they insist on having  pages that
contain rich black (CMY and K). Sad because if you go to Heidelberg's
site they make a big deal about have well their digital printers work
with colormanagement.

Now these guys look like they may have a colormanaged workflow as they
say they offer proofs of the press color space:
http://www.dgtal.com/services_digital_printing_heidelberg.html and
there is no mention of being only "pleasing color"*.
-------------
"Digital Proofing
Prior to the press run, we generate proofs on a Rainbow Digital
Proofer which is calibrated to the Heidelberg printing press."
-------------
I'm sure that means they are not cheap.


* Pleasing color is the term used to say that things are not highly
color controlled like they can be with modern colormanagement and
software control.

Those places were the first 2 on a google search for "Heidelberg
digital printer". I've NEVER had any work done by them, so I do not
know if the quality is really what is desired. If you are truly
commited to producing a book, it might be worth contacting them to see
if they would tag one of your images into some trim space or on the
tail end of a job to get a sample.

<kjrslr@...> wrote:
>
> That was also one of my concerns. So when I came across the artical 
> dealing with softproofing for Blurb, I knew that I could contine to 
> think about doing a book. The info in the artical now gives you some 
> control in that you have a known ICC profile to soft proof with, and 
> that the printing is CMYK(yes that is four color ink printing). With 
> those two bits of information and Photoshops softproofing you can 
> have a lot of control as opposed to none at all. 
> 
>