Making the move from ColorBurst X-ProofPlus to Overdrive & Color Settings advice

[sngraphics]

I had a few questions and needed a little input/advice to make sure this will go OK.

I am in the midst of trying to set up the workflow I will be going with for the next number of years.
Hardware, Software, color settings etc. Most of these are in place.
The newest of these (and I believe most important) is the RIP.

Most of the work I do here is to prepare artwork for resale in our bookstore. (In-House)
Accuracy is important but more so consistency because I reprint the same artwork over and over for different orders.
The odd time I will send jobs out to offset printers using their press profiles in the RIP.
(so far with X-Proof this has been working perfectly!)

I do have a library of images prepared with the "old" workflow but it will be growing much more this year working in the "new" workflow.
I understand with the switch current images will look different being reproduce in the "new" workflow but the emphasis is on the images I will be preparing going forward.
Probably just tweaking the previous ones for the new workflow.

Whatever In-House work I do usually stays in AdobeRGB 1998 (Photoshop).
Work that goes out is of course in CMYK. (profile usually provided by the printer)
All my work is done in Photoshop, placed in InDesign, then output to the RIP and printed on 7900.


My AdobeCS6 color settings are as follows.(below Screenshot)



My RIP settings (till now with X-Proof) are as follows.(below Screenshot)



-My belief till now has been that the AdobeCS & X-Proof/Overdrive RIP color settings had to match. (advice from a friend)

-Is this the "correct" way of working for this Photoshop-InDesign-Rip setup?

-Should I continue this setup going forward with Overdrive?

-Also any comments or suggestions on the actual AdobeCS Color Settings/Selections would be much appreciated.
eg.US Sheetfed Coated vs GRACol, Relative vs Absolute Colorimetric, BPC yes/no etc


Apologies for the long post.

[sngraphics]

Why would the prints change so much when only the CMYK Input Profile was changed
in the RIP and considering that the placed images in InDesign were all AdobeRGB1998?

If all the placed Images were AdobeRGB1998 and "Use Embedded Profiles" was checked
on in the RIP then shouldn't have the prints with the RGB placed images printed exactly
the same as when the CMYK Input Profile in the RIP was set to US Sheetfed?

The above issues/questions arose after making specific changes to settings in Overdrive that produced unexpected results for me.
But, after excellent tech support from ColorBurst I believe we can answer these questions and provide a little insight to how Overdrive works.
All the answers and info were provided from Larry at ColorBurst and with permission are offered here to anyone interested.
If you already knew all this great. If not, I hope this info helps. It greatly helped me!

The answers were provided in separate emails and separated below by dashed lines.
There may be a little repetition in some of the answers because I did not edit any of them, just pasted as is.
Please comment if any of this info did help, or to offer any other info, observations or opinions on this topic.
Thank you.

-------------
Depending how you create a Job to print, your RGB images may be getting changed to CMYK before Overdrive gets the file.
Properly saved, the RGB data will Never be dependent on the settings of the CMYK Input Profile.

From your App, Save as a PDF with the settings of:
- High Quality Print
- PDF Standard = None
- PDF Format = 1.6

These settings will leave your RGB images as RGB.
They will not be converted to CMYK and therefore they do not reference your CMYK Input Profile.

-------------
The above settings:
- leaves Pantones as Pantone (not process color)
- embedded profiles stay embedded (printing from the App loses the embedded profiles)
- RGB and CMYK stay in their original colorspace
- transparencies stay live (not flattened).

Save these files to our Hot Folder or to a Folder to drag to the Job list.

-------------
Now that I understand that you are placing RGB images in your InDesign docs, I can explain a bit more.
If your RGB Images are placed TIFFs or JPegs, then printing from an Application may change the data to CMYK.
The settings above indicate that no color changes should take place and in most, but not all cases, there will be no change.
Even though the RGB color is not being changed to CMYK they will lose their embedded ICC Profiles.
Printing to PostScript does not include embedded Profiles because the PostScript language does not define them as part of the PostScript file, therefore they are discarded.
Printing to PostScript will also flatten transparencies. This is due to the fact that the PostScript format predates the existence of transparent data.
When you have an RGB Tiff and a CMYK dropped shadow, these are typically a transparent blend of different colorspace elements.
Printing will flatten these to the CMYK document colorspace. This causes the RGB image to become CMYK and therefore it will lack in its color richness.
Or worse, the RGB & CMYK intersection will be one color and the rest of the RGB image, that is outside the intersection box, will be another color.

-------------
Saving to a first generation PDF with the settings of High Quality Print, PDF Standard = None, and PDF Format of 1.6
leaves all embedded profiles in the document and all transparent elements in their original colorspace (LIVE) for Overdrive to resolve.
Overdrive does an excellent job of handling the intersection of different colorspaced transparent elements and it will correctly
locate and use the embedded ICC Profiles if our Use Embedded option is ON.

[Jim Andrada]

Thanks for posting! I'm just looking into upgrading to Overdrive.

[sngraphics]

Thanks for posting! I'm just looking into upgrading to Overdrive.

Glad to see this thread is helping out a bit.
I was on the fence for about a year before going from X-Proof to Overdrive.
The best move I made.
I tried other RIPs but I stuck with ColorBurst again for my RIP solution.
I'm really glad I did because Larry over at ColorBurst really helped me understand how
the RIP works and that really helped me setup my workflow in a more efficient manner.

Also I have been speaking to John King over at Showcase Photo & Video, Atlanta, GA
after finding his videos on YouTube and he has been a tremendous help as well.
He really cannot stop talking about how powerful, accurate and affordable this RIP
is and how much it has helped his clients.

Below are the links to the videos he has done on Overdrive. Very good info.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdJVMfNoRhU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si8QVV9CTQY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKdB2...GH3UIw&index=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODu4NwhkWBc

It's funny I found out the value of this RIP after purchasing it rather than before.

[Jim Andrada]

Heck, I appreciate the true value of my lovely wife more than I did before we got married so nothing surprising about your experience with the RIP - I think it works that way for most good things.

[pideja]

Glad to see this thread is helping out a bit.
I was on the fence for about a year before going from X-Proof to Overdrive.
The best move I made.
I tried other RIPs but I stuck with ColorBurst again for my RIP solution.
I'm really glad I did because Larry over at ColorBurst really helped me understand how
the RIP works and that really helped me setup my workflow in a more efficient manner.

Also I have been speaking to John King over at Showcase Photo & Video, Atlanta, GA
after finding his videos on YouTube and he has been a tremendous help as well.
He really cannot stop talking about how powerful, accurate and affordable this RIP
is and how much it has helped his clients.

Below are the links to the videos he has done on Overdrive. Very good info.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdJVMfNoRhU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si8QVV9CTQY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKdB2...GH3UIw&index=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODu4NwhkWBc

It's funny I found out the value of this RIP after purchasing it rather than before.

Believe it or not, I'm engaged in the process on crossing over to Overdrive from XPhoto! So, reading this thread is of great interest, of course.
About the workflow, you suggest to save and print from pdf, for obvious reasons. But I am a bit confused about some settings. I have Acrobat Pro 11.0.7 on a MacPro. Here are the settings I placed in the "General" section : and those in the "Output" section :
I think I got it right, but because the interface is slightly different, I have some doubts. What do you think?

[sngraphics]

Hello pideja,

I apologize for taking so long to reply.

On the "General" pane you have "Optimize for Fast Web View" checked on.
I would check this one OFF. I'm not a PDF expert but this doesn't seem necessary for our purposes and might affect output.
In my previous post Larry mentions to choose "Acrobat 7 (PDF 1.6)" under the "Compatibility" drop down menu.
Again I'm not a PDF expert so I'm not sure about the difference between that and what you have selected.

Also, under the "Output" section in the Export Adobe PDF window you have "Include All Profiles"
I have been using "Include Tagged Source Profiles".
I read and reread all my emails with Larry but I couldn't find any info as to why this is the selection I have been using.
Maybe it was the default when selecting the settings in the "General" section.

I will email ColorBurst this week and double check these two setting selections.
– Difference between using "Acrobat 7 (PDF 1.6)" or "Acrobat 8/9 (PDF 1.7)"
– Difference between using "Include Tagged Source Profiles" or "Include All Profiles"

I'll post back here as soon as I find something out.

Below are screen shots of the settings I have been using.
But thanks to your post it's going to force me to ask Larry a few more questions I never got around to asking him.
eg. like Compression settings. I sort of decided on those myself.

[sngraphics]

Believe it or not, I'm engaged in the process on crossing over to Overdrive from XPhoto! So, reading this thread is of great interest, of course.
About the workflow, you suggest to save and print from pdf, for obvious reasons. But I am a bit confused about some settings. I have Acrobat Pro 11.0.7 on a MacPro. Here are the settings I placed in the "General" section : and those in the "Output" section :
I think I got it right, but because the interface is slightly different, I have some doubts. What do you think?

Thank you for your patience pideja,

I got a hold of Larry at Colorburst about your questions.
Below are his responses.

"Your settings of Do Not Down Sample is good to use.

The Preset of 1.6 PDF Format is better.
There may be some options in 1.7 that we do not support but I’m not sure.

All tagged and all profiles, either is fine – should be the same.
The main issue is No Color Correction.
Since our Presets set up the Color menu, there’s no need to make any changes there."



So basically, under the "General" settings for now go with "Acrobat 7 (PDF 1.6)".
If you really have to stay with Acrobat 8/9 (PDF 1.7) then do some testing with this setting and see if there is any difference as compared to the "Acrobat 7 (PDF 1.6)" setting.

His comment about the "Do Not Down Sample" has to do with the "Compression" section when exporting to PDF.
This was one of my questions.
I output images at resolutions that sometimes go above 450ppi and have gone with this setting to avoid any changes when exporting.

The last part of his response has to do with the second part of your question about the "Output" section when exporting.
Your selection of "Include all Profiles" is fine.
The more important selection here is to make sure your have "No Color Conversion" selected.


Please let me know if this info helped you.
Thank you.