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Help with 1st digital printing sub job

S

salvauser

New Member
I've been cutting vynil for years, but I am considering starting to subcontract digital printing jobs.

The shop doing the job for me required my files to be in CMYK format. I use Signlab for drawing and cutting and I only use either RGB or Oracal's vynil pallete in it.

Since I do not know crap about digital printing, could they use my files as I have them now? I tried reading on several forums how to do this, but I am still lost. Have no idea about the stuff they mention like printer profiles, RIP and all that jargon.


Thanks
 
JR's

JR's

New Member
Hi Salvauser I just did what you are trying to do. the best bet is call one of the printers and talk to a person.I used signs365 and it was effortless. I to use Signlab and what I did is export in eps and that works for some. good luck hope this helps.
 
C

ChiknNutz

New Member
They do not HAVE to be in CMYK, they are saying that to cover their butts. Reason is, designing and then printing in CMYK reduces color shift. You can actually print from any number of color spaces...RGB, CMYK, Lab or Spot. All of them are ultimately converted to CMYK when printed, but that is the job of the RIP to sort it out. If you give them some leeway with the actual color output and don't hold their nutz to the fire if the color shifts, go ahead and submit it in RGB. Actually, some RGB colors will print better (brighter) than if created in CMYK, but may not be as ACCURATE...understand?
 
eforer

eforer

New Member
If they are telling you to send them files in CMYK there is something fishy. A reputable shop that profiles in house will always work in RGB and let the RIP in conjunction with their custom profiles sort out the color. Even with OE canned profiles this is the way to go. This is because the gamut on most digital printer greatly exceeds that of the CMYK color spaces offered by Adobe and other graphics software providers. By feeding the RIP an RGB project you will extract the most from your printer in terms of attaining a wide, potent color gamut. The only reason some shops ask customers for CMYK is to keep them from sending them files that have colors that are well outside any printable gamut.

You can read more about this in the threads regarding color profiling in the digital printing section of the forum.
 
d fleming

d fleming

Premium Subscriber
You can design in cmyk in Signlab. Shouldn't make a difference to the printer. Give him a pdf or eps. Perhaps you should sub it out to someone who uses signlab as a rip? Then your files can stay in their native format.
 
J

javila

New Member
There's nothing fishy about asking for cmyk files. We ask for cmyk files from certain clients we wholesale to because they can't be bothered to undestand about color shifting and how to design in RGB, get's rid of one headache though.
 
gabagoo

gabagoo

New Member
I still run Signlab 5 and I will tell you this when I set up a file in Signlab that is all spot colours and export as an eps file to Flexi, I have found that most of the colours come in great and print pretty well the way I expect. For instance my saphire blue colour came through so good that I made sure to write down the rgb formula for it and use it all the time now. r-0 g-0 b-158 . I have found some reds to that are much nicer than the reds i can pick off the flexi colour charts. Again they are rgb mixes but seem to print as good a red as I can find.
 
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