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Flexi on hp latex vs onyx

I

ikarasu

Active Member
eahicks said:
For vector drawing/editing/node manipulation, Flexi is way easier to me. Illustrator is fine. But for most sign work, Flexi will do everything Illy will do, and like I said, some of it easier. I find Illy's toolbars and menus cumbersome.
Don't think of Flexi as RIP that has an editor...it's not that. It's a sign software with an attached RIP (Production Manager) that flows together. And with the newer version for HP Latex (Profiling and Media Management) it's all in one.
Click to expand...
I just upgraded to cloud to try it. And your description is bang on... It feels like it's mainly a sign software, with a very basic rip thrown in.

Are you unable to edit the image via production manager? In onyx I can quickly Crop an image. Took me awhile to figure out color replacer...it's a bit crude compared to Onyx's, but it works, so that's good. I wish it updated in real time as I changed stuff though, but beggers can't be choosers!

after playing with it for an hour, the onlything that seems to be missing is the cropping.

I stick by my original statement... All in all, it comes down to a matter of preference. For me, I prefer Onyx. Flexi feels a little too basic / not as customizable. But in the end, both software's can pretty much do everything the other can do, and just as good... it's all about getting used to the different layouts.
 
Bly

Bly

New Member
ikarasu said:
Does the 360 ONLY do onboard profiling? Theres a lot of advanced settings in onyx... and I like the idea of the onboard profiling, but I always presumed it was just like a built in specto, that it still fed the data back to onyx and allowed you to tweak it.
Click to expand...
I couldn't work out how to do it. TBH the onboard profiling is so easy why would you bother?
Press a button and go do something else for half an hour and voila.
 
I

ikarasu

Active Member
Bly said:
I couldn't work out how to do it. TBH the onboard profiling is so easy why would you bother?
Press a button and go do something else for half an hour and voila.
Click to expand...

I find at least with our solvent printer, certain colors don't profile too well. Of course just making a profile helps a huge amount... But most of our greys looked like crap, even with a profile. We had to change Start/Max black, Start/Max Grey, and gray generation, etc to get them to be accurate.

We also have certain profiles for certain clients. One client needs a specific grey that we can only get with UCR. It tends to produce a more grainy print than GCR does,so of course we use it just for them.

We have a calibrator, so it doesn't matter either way. My latex 110 doesn't have a reader built in, we're buying a new latex for work though which should... so figured I'd get a head start on it.
 
S

struthmuffin

New Member
We have a print and sign shop that runs commercial print as well as an hp 260, and an hp fb500 as well as a summacut plotter. Lots of people talking about profiling etc.. that seems to be common knowledge that onyx is the better of the two.. I actually find that somewhat arguable.. but heres what i found straight up.
ONYX Cons
Onyx is a boat load slower, processes way too much before you can touch a file.
Always seemed like a few less features. V11 should have had grommet marks etc.
Cutting capability is limited and needs prep work expecially if it is just a vinyl cut job.
No monthly update plan (I quite like that option)
Onyx Pros
Crashes way less than flexi.
99% Files print as expected/viewed.
Pretty strightforward interface (opinion)

Flexi Pros
Felt quick
You could manipulate a preview of a file to adjust, resize, rotate, etc before processing.
Nesting was better for sure, more (and quicker) control.
Vinyl cutting is light years ahead.
Monthly subscription plan (Personally like that)
Flexi Cons
Crashes quite a bit
Menus are a little convoluted (opinion)
Files print very unreliably (in my experience)**
**we run a full adobe cc shop, along with supplied files. full pdf workflow in our shop. for whatever reason, jpegs, transparencies.. we tried extended trials with Flexi checking in on more than one occasion, and on multiple prints we would see one thing on the screen, but get a print with overloaded inks dripping off the sheet and almost solid blacks where there were gradients. Flexi has never solved nor returned to us after multiple attempts of using the software. I would still love to try again if it would work.. but that is a very strong warning to those on the fence. We spend and wasted quite a bit on calibrations, tests, and random failures with flexi. The only problem I can recall with onyx was a font issue which was frustrating but very very rare.

Hopefully thats helpful to someone!
 
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