Bright Colors - RGB or Max Impact?

[splizaat]

New to printing with versaworks...curious though. The printer we usually use takes our CMYK files (using roland's normal black tile) and our blacks turn our perfect black and usually the colors are nice and bright/vibrant using MAX IMPACT. That's all they print with...

So my question is, whats the harm in printing MAX IMPACT all the time? Does it use more ink etc? Why would i NOT want my colors to be vibrant all the time?

Or should I set my files up in RGB to get nice solid blacks and bright colors?

-Matt

 

[TresL]

I use MAX Impact most of the time and 99% of my files are RGB.

Using the Roland colors, it doesn't seem to matter RGB or CMYK.

I get the same black, reds, etc....
But, I can send JPG's that look better than CMYK files.

 

[Custom_Grafx]

Sometimes you need to match certain colours/appearance as something someone else has printed, using say offset printing.

To match that, (depending on what the offset printer used), you might find that using US Prepress in Versa, gives you a closer match. The colours are a little more muted compared to max impact.

 

[rushworks graphics]

we always use us prepress etc. i'm led to believe that max impact does use more inks etc, so i'm told.

 

[Mike F]

Prepress US is for anything that has a raster image in it, MAX IMPACT is for 100% vector files. It makes the colors on vectors "pop" a bit more, and yes it does use a bit more ink. If you set it as Prepress and hit OK, check your ink consumption at the bottom, then go back into settings and set as max impact, hit OK and check consumption again, you can see what the difference is.

 

[rushworks graphics]

Prepress US is for anything that has a raster image in it, MAX IMPACT is for 100% vector files. It makes the colors on vectors "pop" a bit more, and yes it does use a bit more ink. If you set it as Prepress and hit OK, check your ink consumption at the bottom, then go back into settings and set as max impact, hit OK and check consumption again, you can see what the difference is.

mike......is there a real big difference between the two? or is it something you wouldn't really notice to much? i know i could just go print 2 identicle files and use one prepress and the other max impact, but i was just curious.

 

[Mike F]

mike......is there a real big difference between the two? or is it something you wouldn't really notice to much? i know i could just go print 2 identicle files and use one prepress and the other max impact, but i was just curious.

I've never done a side by side comparison of the same file printed both ways, so I'm not sure how noticeable it really is, but when I print vector stuff with MI I do notice they seem to "pop" more than raster images printed with PP. I hate saying "pop" but that's really the only way I can describe it. Make a quick test file with just the word "TEST" in black with a red outline and print it both ways, you'll see what I mean.

 

[splizaat]

With prePress it's a definite difference, most noticeable for me in the BLACK. We typically design CMYK (will be changing that soon) using the default black in illustrator and to get it pure dark dark black, max impact does the trick. We printed same file without max impact and although the black is black, it's not PURE dark black. Had it not been printed right next to the max impact sample print, I am not sure i'd (as a customer) notice the difference in colors "popping" but the black for sure.

What's best way to convert an already vector CMYK file in illustrator to RGB?? I really want to try this and see what the result are.

 

[houseofgrafix]

ifl

 

[splizaat]

huh?

 

[houseofgrafix]

huh?

IFL

In for later

I wanted to read about this but was on my way out of the shop.
So i put "ifl" so when i get some free time i can look at my post and find this!

 

[cdiesel]

Changing from Max Impact to PrePress is tanamount to using a different profile.

Max Impact will give you very orange & purple skin tones. Some colors will print with very high contrast.

You can print with either option. Neither is a solution for 100% of your printing. Just make sure you keep records of what jobs are printed with what settings so you can go back and reproduce them later.

 

[Helvyn Santiago]

The Difference is about 25% to 30% more ink printing in Max Impact profiles.

 

[john1]

Max impact is all I use, prints like a dream vs us prepress IMO

 

[Dilemma]

max impact is designed to print bright powerful colors (good for text/signage, not to good for photographs). It will take the soft light colors that are out of gamut and bring them into gamut in a brighter richer color. It will brighten your dark colors also. In a photograph it will cause the photo to not have the definition and detail that it will in prepress.

There is a good series of videos to watch on the roland website that covers this topic. It is under support- Roland academy- online webinars - Archive- the videos to look for are color management related. I think it is free if you have a roland printer. just enter your printers serial number. These video's have saved me a lot of headache.
http://www.rolanddga.com/training/webinar/archive/video_17.asp

 

[P Wagner]

MAX Impact is a very useful preset in Versaworks, though most users have little idea what it really does.

Roland has created its own RGB and CMYK working spaces and using this preset automatically converts the color values in the file to these color spaces. As they are larger than standard working spaces, such as sRGB and SWOP, this causes colors in the file to become more saturated. This preset also disables any embedded working space in the file, and forces both RGB and CMYK-based colors into the Roland color spaces.

It also uses Relative Colorimetric rendering (matching method) for both raster and vector art.