Hello, Sounds like your doing OK considering what you have described. BUT: I hope you have really good profiled monitors such as the larger Apples or Eizo's. And be sure youre NOT assigning profiles that are far off of what may be embedded in the file (Abobe RGB 1998 is good middle ground). If you are printing, be sure to use color proofing paper, or paper that is bright white - but not "photo archival" paper, that will darken some of the 3/4 tones. Epson has a Proofing roll that is very good.
My experience is you may call these "reference prints." That will stop a printer from looking at these as "match prints," but at least give them some sense of the color and densities. You do have a broken work flow however and the only fix is to have the person who has the original film to review the print you have made. AND...they have to view the print and the film in a professional way, AND.... make proper notes describing ink density changes. All that is why most printers will tell you to stay away from digital images. They would rather scan the film and control all the color themselves. I have some commercial printing experience so call if you want more detail. We are just instituting match prints here at Princeton. A few notes regarding these: True match prints are printed from digital files that have been converted to CMYK under the control of color management software such as Gretag. These are printed in CMYK on color inkjet printers such as Epson 4800 or better (on epson "proof paper"), or DuPonts (which everyone hates) or Iris printers, which are really getting replaced everywhere. Other true match prints are directly from your commercial printer, or a color separator using some of the larger Kodak proofers. However, In house you can take some short cuts and do very well with RGB match prints. We are using an Epson 2200 and printing on Epson Proof paper (roll) and performing 1-3 rounds of color correction. These corrections are matching the color film that was scanned. The transparency and match print are viewed side by side in a light booth or GTI film/transparency viewer. Have your monitor calibrated by the same software that calibrates and profiles your printer. Sorry for the long response, JEFF Jeffrey Evans Princeton Univ Art Museum 609.258.8579 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] on behalf of Deborah Wythe Sent: Mon 3/12/2007 9:35 AM To: mcn-l at mcn.edu Subject: [MCN-L] DM SIG: match prints from digital files Hello all, Have other photo studios/scan labs/R&R departments been wrestling with the issue of match prints (or "match prints"), now that most of us are no longer sending out transparencies to publishers? It's one thing to produce a match print on a high-end printer, using color management and calibrated everything when you have access to the original art or at least to a good transparency. It's an entirely different proposition to do so when you are assembling images for a catalog from a variety of sources, most of whom now simply send you a digital file and many of whom do not have the capability of producing anything close to a match print. Publishers generally insist on a match print, and the lack of an analog resource to compare can certainly cause problems in the color proofing process. When we only have the file to go by, our solution is to produce the best print we can, based on what we're seeing on our calibrated monitors and using the color profile we receive with the digital file. It's not ideal, but the best we can do, considering. One dilemma, though, is what to call these prints so that it's clear that they're not truly match prints that have a solid relationship to the original art. Or am I just splitting hairs? How are others handling this? Thanks for your input, Deb Wythe Deborah Wythe Head, Digital Collections and Services Brooklyn Museum 200 Eastern Parkway Brooklyn, NY 11238 tel: 718 501 6311 fax: 718 501 6145 deborahwythe at hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Get a FREE Web site, company branded e-mail and more from Microsoft Office Live! http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/mcrssaub0050001411mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
