Onyx and Tiling Problems need help

[carter the artist]

Okay, this for those of us in prepress. We have started to get more larger jobs, and the responsibility of finding an answer falls on me. I have talked to Onyx support, to the local guru and all to no avail.

Situation:
We use Onyx 6.5 and rip a large tiling file. We set the tiles to a specific size and whatnot. We then print to a Mutoh II Outdoor Falcon.

We always have at least one tile off by up to 3/4 inches. The latest one has it where the first two tiles line up properly. The last two line up properly. However the second to the third tiles are off. It seems the last two tiles are about 1/2 " off. They either printed out that much longer or were stretched either thru the printing process or via the laminator. The media is a xp pop banner and the Lam is thick polycarb...

Any ideas, suggestions, similar problems and fixes, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[D-Frag]

wow, this is exactly what i use. ive never had that problem before fortunetly. what is the space you are setting up between tiles? we usually use .50" to and inch for the overlap.

[carter the artist]

Update:
We went and measured the panels. They were all set to print at 90", however they all came out Shorter, which excludes the stretching aspect. They came out at
89 10/16 , 89 9/16 , 89 5/8 , 89 5/8 , respectively.

[carter the artist]

We used an inch overlap.

[carter the artist]

Please help. It seems we are going to have to go to my 'quick' fix of setting each piece in Illustrator, use clipping masks and save each tile out as an individual piece, I don't want to do that, it takes tooo long. I know Onyx is supposed to be able to do this, it's only 90", for goodness sake.

[jimking]

Try these folks www.prepressforums.com/

[carter the artist]

Thanks for the link JimKing. I hope it will be as informative as I have found GDF. I thought it odd that they didn't have any Onyx section on their prepress forums, but hopefully I'll find some tidbits of knowledge.

[prepress_goddess]

double check the magnification in preflight. every once in a while (usually a tiff file), the magnification will be set to 89.95%

[jimking]

Thanks for the link JimKing. I hope it will be as informative as I have found GDF. I thought it odd that they didn't have any Onyx section on their prepress forums, but hopefully I'll find some tidbits of knowledge.
I been in printing for years and I can't recall Onyx. Is it for print packaging?
If you get a chance, can you explain your workflow? Thanks

[prepress_goddess]

i use onyx postershop 6.5 to front a 60" encad750 for poster output. this is a true postscript RIP so you can send PS, PDF, TIF and EPS directly to the que and it process file in seconds. - Preflight within Onyx allows you to rotate, scale, add crops and adjust color.

I've had the shrinking of the output happen, looked at the file through preflight and walla - magnification set to 89.95% - reset to 1.0 and no problem.

by the way, i'm new here. but have been doing prepress/printing/design for about the last 20 years or so - i found this forum on a thread from prepress forums, which is where i spend most of my time.

having a slow day, so i decided to check out your place

[jimking]

I go there many (PPF) times also. So this is for large format printing?

[prepress_goddess]

yes - this is for large format output for posters and signs

[carter the artist]

Prepress goddess: I always look at the %, we had a problem where it used to change those numbers on us when we submitted the rip.

JimKing: Onyx (http://www.onyxgfx.com/kb.pl) It's the rip we use for our large format digital printing.

We have a setup of 3 computers. A PC and a Mac for editing, a seperate pc with our server (and used for flexisign), and the other pc we use to store our working files and has Onyx on it. We send it to our Mutoh Outdoor Falcon II usually, but occasional files to the Roland.

[prepress_goddess]

i'll call my onyx tech on monday to see if i can get an answer for you. they're pretty good at getting back with me quickly.

[carter the artist]

actually I spent over an hour yesterday talking to the tech dpt. Pretty much he stated that If I recycle a print and they both come out different I'm looking at either a media or printer issue. Of course this means media wise it could be an issue of too much/too less heat. stretching. step adjust (which means then i'm back to dealing with a banding issue). humidity, static..God hates me, etc... kinds of reasons.

Anyways, if any of you deal in large format printing and you do tiling, why not give some resources, tips, etc...

Thanks.

[prepress_goddess]

what is the material you're printing on - vinyl will definately stretch depending on humidity and temperature, but this seems pretty extreme. I've only had to tile a few jobs on the encad. most jobs run within the 58" limit of the image area. if i get an answer for you on monday, i'll post it here for you

[carter the artist]

I was printing on pop banner (some xl wpr or something, can't remember off hand), and we laminated with thick polycarb.

[prepress_goddess]

hey carter_the_artist - my techie guy is still looking into what may be happening with your reduction problem. one thing he did ask is if it was proportional or just happening in one direction

[prepress_goddess]

carter - any luck - the only answer i got back was media stretch - sorry, wish i could be of mor help

[carter the artist]

Onyx tech pretty much stated that if the two pieces were of the same tile (and we did recycle one of the tiles) and they were off, then more than likely it was media or printer related and not onyx. Now the question is what caused it... static, humidity, step adjust, et...

I still don't understand why they came up short tho.

[carter the artist]

Sure enough. The client called back and complained. We had them pretty much lined up, but because of some uncontrollable factor the last panels didn't EXACTLY line up. Even Onyx said that a fluctuation of 1/8" to 1/2" is normal and industry standard.

I want some feedback. Prepress Goddess, Print Driver, D Frag : Do you print up tiling jobs? And if so, do they come out 100% the exact size as the file and all that? What tips can you present? This is driving me insane. We are losing money on these jobs and it's making me look like an idiot. We try to explain to the clients, onyx, etc.. that these are not working and that some fluctuations happen.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

[prepress_goddess]

i only do tiling jobs once in a great while - and haven't experienced what you are going through. My main media is the photogloss and the photomatte - with canvas once in a great while. The only thing that I can come up with, since onyx is unable to help, is find the percentage that the image is shrinking or growing and apply magnification to that particular tile in the preflight section. I know this is a PIA workaround. maybe try some tests and see if the "stretch" is consistent.

[carter the artist]

yeah, we really think it's a media issue.

[prepress_goddess]

one other thing - contact the maker of the media that you are printing on and see if there are issues with stretching due to humidty etc. I have found that most suppliers of media are happy to get samples for you to try of various manufacturers. I would get a couple of different manufacturer's samples and send the same job to all and see if the stretching results are the same or if one is better than the other.

let me know what you find out - i might end up going throught this myself if we ever start printing on other substrates.

good luck!

[bent]

I use onyx 6.5 as well and ran into the same issue. I do large tradeshow exhibits and problem was that overlap is over rated, does it on one side not on both. As for stretching, this has long been a problem and just the nature of the beast (your printer). Over the years ive been doing this, ive learned two things that almost never do me wrong. First, if it's large format, I never switch rolls unless i absolutely have too. Each roll has it's own lot and own tendencies (ie. one roll feeds different than another roll) believe it or not, tis true. Second, although this might entail a little more time, but once you get used to it, it's like "cheddar". I do one quark doc , set up for finish size then add 1/4" bleed to every panel. Then tile in quark and save each panel as it's own file. Ive NEVER had success using tiling in wasatch or onyx because of the very reason you discussed. Ergo, do da quark tile thing. has never done me wrong, still stretches from time to time, but less than an 1/8 of an inch at most.

good luck
bent on design

[carter the artist]

Thank you so much Bent. I will run this by the shop and see what they have to say.