Transition from Omega Composer (cut vinyl) to Flatbed UV Printing

[Wowee18]

My company does a lot of vinyl cutting using mostly Omega Composer and Gerber products. Our font set and workflow are completely built around the use of Composer. As many of you know there are often difficulties when converting and importing these file types to either Adobe Illustrator or Onyx. We are beginning the researching stage of transitioning to a flatbed UV print process and wonder if anyone has gone through a similar transition. Composer files are just not going to cut it when Onyx is the output. Thanks in advance for any input!

Mark in Michigan

 

[Tony Teveris]

What version of Omega are you using. We have many Omega 2.5 / 3.0 and now 4.0 users who export EPS to Onyx with no problems. What issues do you have?

 

[Wowee18]

We are using Ver. 2.6. That sounds very encouraging! I wasn't sure how much better file conversions would be from one version to the next. I've always found Composer to be very good at what its for, but not much else.

 

[hydo1]

We still use Omega 2.1 everyday and I output many of the files to an EPS and color correct them in Illustrator, then send to our Colorspan UV Printer without too many problems. If I wanted to I could just adjust the colors to proper Pantone values within Composer and be fine, I have done it before.

Composer is my go-to program because I can work within it very quickly.

 

[GoodPeopleFlags]

I always have to reset my colors in Illy after bringing them over from Omega. If a customer has a raster file, place it directly into Illy; don't import into Omega then export it and place in Illy. The colors change a little.

 

[Tony Teveris]

Wowee18,

Omega 2.6 should be Ok. What are your issues? colors, ???

If colors do you design with Spot colors or CMYK or Pantone?

For those designing in Illy and then exporting into Omega you can use the GerberSpotFoils swatch provided on the Omega CD. I think it works starting with Illy 8 or 9 and Omega 2.5 and gets better with later versions of Omega.

With Omega 4.0 there is now a color mapping feature for the PDF/AI and EPS import filter that allows you to map non Gerber colors to Gerbet Spot colors (does not allow gradient fills at this time)

 

[Tony Teveris]

Also for any Onyx / Omega users Onyx provides a means or mapping "named colors" to your current setup (output printer profile). The files are named *.tab, I do have one for Gerber Foils if any one wants it and does not have it.

 

[Malkin]

We had a similar transition when we added a Roland vp540 to our shop. The other issue is that I am fairly comfortable with our Gerber font lineup, but our true type choices are awful (except for A&S). When I want to have a file built natively in Illustrator with live text I can't use the really well built Gerber fonts. Oh well, can't have your cake and eat it too I guess.

I've started to natively build files for print in Illy, and files for cut in Gerber. Duplicate files are kind of annoying.

 

[Wowee18]

The duplicate file part is what is going to be a struggle. We do a lot of typesetting and vinyl cutting from Omega right now, and Illustrator is no match for that kind of productivity. The preference would be to be able to continue working and typesetting in Omega with consistent .eps performace for ONYX output. However, more complicated logos and designs (gradients and transparencies, etc.) are still going to be native to Illy.

The good news is that it sounds like this is possible without having to "clean up" or the files in Illy, which can be time consuming.

Another trick is going to be registration. We'll be registering many small parts onto the flatbed and having to print to very specific spots, dead on, all day long. Thats just not something I've had good luck with Omega on our laser cutter, which has a 24x36 bed. I can do it, but its more cumbersome than Illy mainly because Illy has a page size that can match the bed size for output.

Thanks for the replies! Signs 101 is a great resource!

 

[Tony Teveris]

For alignment could you not create a special layer in Omega and create a rectangle that represents the table. The layer/rect would ONLY be used as a reference. Are you outputting to the laser from Omega or some other app.

There are many times when I would love to travel to sign shops and watch "your" work flow. Just doing what I've been doing for 34+ years and knowning enough about what software may be doing I think I could help a lot of people, I think!!!

I do understand the fustration of going through all these conversion processes.

 

[Wowee18]

I output to the laser from Omega and use the wireframe designation in the print options for vector cutting. Not sure how the layer option would work. I will play with that. If I created a 24x36 box to represent the laser bed, I'm guessing it would automatically try to cut that box out since I have no idea how to tell the laser that the shape is "reference only" but there might be a way. I've been using Omega for years and I'm still learning stuff!

 

[daveb]

For alignment could you not create a special layer in Omega and create a rectangle that represents the table. The layer/rect would ONLY be used as a reference. Are you outputting to the laser from Omega or some other app.

Tony, we've done this for quite a while with our Sabre. We haven't been able to justify a UV flatbed yet but we create the 4'x8' "page" and print that as an outline with our artwork nested inside that page, apply to substraight then position the corner of that page at home on the router and cut out our shapes. Don't see why that wouldn't work for this application also. Just my $.02 worth oh great one