FAQ: World of Fiery Webinar – File Preparation for Specialty Inkjet Printing

Today you mainly spoke about inkjet technology. Do any toner devices have specialty inks?

Yes, they do. Toner devices can now utilize additional toner types beyond CMYK such as orange, green, white, clear, and metallic. File preparation will be essentially the same for either inkjet, toner, or even offset.

If I need to scale a low resolution image, what are the best settings to use? e.g. screenshots?

In a program such as Adobe Photoshop®, you will want to use bicubic interpolation for the best quality. Genuine Fractals, now called Perfect Resize from onOne™ Software, purports to produce higher quality scaled images and has a free trial available that you may want to test. Keep in mind, however, that no software can add additional detail if it does not exist in the original image.

TIFF can also be saved with layers. Are they not supported the same by the RIP?

Although layered TIFF files are supported in Fiery XF, this is not always the case with other programs. A TIFF reader may only be able to view flattened TIFF files. Software that is capable of reading PSD files, seem to support any "flavor" of that file type. Ultimately, if the way you use layered TIFF files works with your imaging system, go ahead and use it. But, if you are sending files to an unknown final system, PSD may be safer. There also was a smaller size limitation in TIFF files but that seems to have been overcome in current versions of software from Adobe.

What about exporting to PDF using the "press quality" setting?

I generally recommend the use of the PDF/X-4 setting as it does not specify a color conversion while, Press Quality specifies that all color be converted to the destination color space, unless you change this. I therefore find it a little more restrictive. I prefer to use settings that refer to actual standards, and PDF/X-4 qualifies in that respect.

Is it a general rule to not convert spot colors to CMYK/RGB color builds when going to press for regular brochures, etc. that you intend to only print process?

Well, for either a traditional printing press printing only 4-color inks or an inkjet printer, any spot color will definitely need to be converted to process equivalents. In the case of a press, you are likely printing on one stock. Which stock? What are the characteristics? What is the best "CMYK recipe" for that spot color? Now combine that with the inkjet possibility of printing a single file on multiple media types e.g. Tyvek, gloss banner, textile, where each will need its own ideal recipe and the conversion becomes an issue. Keep in mind that once a spot color is converted to process, any person working with that file is limited on any additional adjustment that they can make. If you know that the printing is only going to involve a single media, and you know the best CMYK values that will print the color in question to your satisfaction, you could convert the spot color to process. Simply understand that you have greatly limited the future flexibility of the files use.


Do all RIPs have the ability to manage spot colors and paths as you demonstrated?

No, not all RIPs share this capability. You will need to test your specific workflow system to ensure that it is compatible with your files.

How can we access previous presentations?

All our World of Fiery sessions are recorded and made available for on-demand viewing. You can find a list of all recorded sessions, plus upcoming sessions, at http://webinar.efi.com/WorldofFiery2015/WideFormat.

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10/2/2015