CamarotaDesign
01-25-2007, 05:00 PM
I've been having trouble finding one that would be right for me online. I really don't know whats the best for print production.
They also range from less than $100 to over $500. I'd like to use it to measure ink density for CMYK from printed samples from printers so I can make accurate color builds.
Can someone point me in the right direction? I'm looking to spend less than $200
protone
01-26-2007, 06:37 AM
I've been having trouble finding one that would be right for me online. I really don't know whats the best for print production.
They also range from less than $100 to over $500. I'd like to use it to measure ink density for CMYK from printed samples from printers so I can make accurate color builds.
Can someone point me in the right direction? I'm looking to spend less than $200
Actually, what you want is a spectrophotodensitometer, this unit will provide both the density of the ink film on paper/plastic substrate but also the *L*a*b values, dot gain etc... How do you plan on creating your color builds?
General profiles are intended to adjust the input from any source to match the specific output printer. When you profile a printer you are not measuring ink density at all, but using a spectrophotodensitometer to measure the saturation and hue characteristics of that printer. Since all printers and presses have different printing characteristics, selecting colors by dot percentages and ink density is a really poor way to do it.
You are better served to read the L*A*B* values of the printed piece or color swatch. You can then export those values to many RIPs, which can take responsibility for getting the values right for your presses. Once you’re sure you have hit the color, you can revise the look-up tables in your software to correspond to your own workflow, hence creating your color build based on real world print output.
What I am saying is reading just the density of the ink film will most likely not help too much on creating a color build unless you can co-ordinate that value back to your digital workflow, super super hard to do unless I am misunderstanding your requirement.
As far as units go, a densitometer for 2 bills is hard to come by, check out ebay:
Business & Industrial-->Printing & Graphic Arts-->Printing & Graphic Essentials-->Color Control & Evaluation
They are listed there, stick to a Gretag MacBeth or X-Rite unit as they are the best and most well known. A D19C, 504 or 938 should work fine but sell used for 300 to 1,200 bucks. If you can swing it look for a Spectrophotodensitometer because it does it all.
Hope my answer helped a bit.:)