Gerber Omega

[Uncle Dave]

Howdy: 25 years in the sign biz. Started on a 4-B (sorry, youngsters Now using Omega 2.0 with a Graphtec plotter. Still do not print. Can't justify the expense when I have a local company who will do it for me when needed and at very reasonable prices. Going from GA to Omega took some head scratching but overall I like it. REMEMBER: I'm cutting vinyl here, that's all. There is one thing, however that's costing me about an hour a week (or more). The "combine" feature. This is clearly geared toward printing and has no practical application for vinyl cutting. The issue is printing simple paper proofs for clients or saving a picture file for emailing. The interiors of letters and/or graphics fill in, especially when working with previous GA files. So, I gotta hit print preview, see what's screwed up and fix it. Print or save as .jpeg. Oops..missed something. Do over. Oops..it affected all the same colors on the screen. Undo...do again. The kicker is, it looks fine in Composer. It's an ENORMOUS pain. It's probably a wonderful thing for all you printers but for us vinyl cutters it sux. Vendor and Gerber pretty much say "yeah, sorry about that". Anyone know how to get around it?

 

[Red Ball]

Howdy Dave!

Started with #8 quill and...
Never mind.

Signmaker III was our first machine.
Make all objects as white vinyl. Color with the fill and stoke features.
Make your presentation then delete the fills and strokes before plotting.

Just a thought...

 

[Fred Weiss]

I get that but have always just considered it a minor annoyance. Just select the uncombined text and click the donut icon to combine it.

 

[ironchef]

Hey dave. I currently have the same problem. I import from our old computer, an xp, with graphix advantage. On a mimaki cg 130 plotter. And our new omega 4.0 with a 30in graphtec fc8000. On windows 7. When i import the plt file from ga. All the colors get messed up. There should be a way to turn the print options off. Besides that i love omega.

 

[Uncle Dave]

Thanx, all.

Red Ball: Unfortunately, the only thing I could do with a #8 quill is maybe clean the wax out of my ear with the non-business end!

Fred: Yeah, it's minor once, but gets old 30 or 40 times a day. Especially when you have a file with 30 or 40 signs in it with text and graphics and the same amount of different colors with outlines, shadows, etc.

I sympathize, Iron Chef.

The bottom line is, when I view something "filled" in Composer and it appears correctly, it should print or save for email as shown on the screen. GA did it, Illustrator does it, Photoshop does it. I shouldn't have do do anything special. This is clearly a Gerber software development boo-boo. Maybe they'll fix it in future versions.

 

[James Burke]

How about selecting your artwork in Omega, ctrl+C (copy) and then paste into a blank Illustrator artboard. I do it all the time with SignLab and it works awesomely well.

Matter of fact, I don't even know how to print proofs out of SL...it's just way too easy with Illy...and besides...I can also add my watermarked logo and create a jpeg or pdf while I'm there.

JB

 

[ironchef]

I agree. It works better going from composer to corel draw then composer to composer(omega)

 

[Uncle Dave]

Thanks, James, but the problem is, when I have something assigned with vinyl colors in Composer and put it in Illustrator, the colors aren't right 'cause Illustrator don't know nuthin' 'bout no Composer or vinyl colors. Mo' fixin'.
I pretty much know all the workarounds to my issue but the bottom line is, I shouldn't have to work around anything. It's just plain wrong not to be able to one click print what's on my monitor and have it look like what I'm lookin' at.
The other problem I have with sign technology in general is that the tech support and sales people usually don't seem to have any sign shop experience. The sales people will tell you anything and then when something ain't as promised, tell you to call tech support. Good luck with that. I was having set up trouble with my Graphtec plotter years ago regarding stacking lines of different copy on 30 inch material to maximize usage. The tech guy actually said "Why would you want to that? I've never heard of such a thing." Ummm...okay. So I should run a line of one inch copy along the bottom of the roll and the next after that, etc. Wow....

 

[signage]

Uncle Dave your monitor shows things in RGB and your print prints with CYMK. Those two color models do not have the same number of visible colors! So how is that to work?

 

[Fred Weiss]

The lack of understanding isn't always the case. For example, I was taught everything I needed to know to screen print by a salesman for a screen ink company.

On the other hand, my first vinyl cutter was a Gerber Signmaker III which lacked any ability to auto kern. You got usable lines of text out of it by plotting on paper, manually kerning, plotting again, manually kerning again until it was right. It might take you 30 minutes to get one line of text looking decent.

Then Gerber came out with the Signmaker IV which had autokerning. They offered an upgrade for $2K to owners of older models. My distributor never even told me about it because he assumed that no one would pay $2K for such a feature (among other features). His ignorance of the products he sold was unbelievable and ultimately caused me to change suppliers.

These days the people I deal with for equipment and supplies are as good as it gets when it comes to offering good advice and support.

I imagine there's an answer for the issue you've brought up. I wish I had an answer for you.

 

[Tony Teveris]

Uncle Dave, when the situation arrives email one of your PLT files. Also, what version or 2.X are you running (2.1, 2.56, 2.6, etc) or even check the version of Composer (its about dialog) Screen captures showing the problem would help also. I do think Omega 4/5 have made dealing with this easier but what to make sure before pushing you forward.

I could go into a long history of this but I do not have the time or space here, believe me and it has caused me grief for years.

 

[Uncle Dave]

Signage: I have no issues with color reproduction. The problem is graphics or text that look correct on the screen put print with parts filled in due to the "combine" feature in Omega.
Tony: Wow..A Gerber dude with a big ol' title. I really like that! I've forwarded your info to my shop and will send you some stuff. Perhaps you can help. I appreciate the contact.
All: The simplest trick I've found to print or save something as a pic correctly (and I can't remember who told me this) is to create a teeny box next to the item in question and assign it a process color. Select it with the item you're printing/saving and everything looks fine.

 

[ironchef]

Today. I uninstalled omega 4.0 and reinstalled it. And went into to advanced or custom setup. And only clicked art path and omega. I didnt install the rip option. And there was also a monument option which you need a password. So i didn't install that either. And glad to say it got rid of the color palettes on the right. And left me my vinyl ones on the bottom .

 

[Uncle Dave]

Ironchef: Whoa...that's interesting. I'm sure I just installed the full boat never thinking there would be a future problem. Might give it a try. THANX!

 

[ironchef]

I'm glad i was some help to someone. I'm still new here. And to this industry. My moms been doing it over 20 years. I been doing this full-time for over a year now. Was doing the chef thing before. So yea i only installed the art path and the main program. I'm going to do it all over again soon, when i get an ssd for the pc and reinstall win7 then all the programs.