General Information

Customers who make changes to digital files on their home computers may find inconsistencies between their monitors and the final output. In this case you may need to calibrate your monitor to ensure your settings are consistent with ours.
This enables us to see images on our monitors, as they will appear when they are printed. In other words, good matching between Input (scan or digital file), Monitor Display and Output (print).

Gamut

The gamut of an image is the measure of its tonal and colour range. All images have a gamut and all imaging devices can be determined in terms of their tonal and colour capability. It is a fact that limitations in the technology of image reproduction mean that on-screen colours cannot always be printed, even on the best digital printer. The principle of colour management is to anticipate and allow for changes that may occur to the image gamut during printing.

Monitor set-up

For a good colour managed digital workflow, monitor screens should be properly calibrated. We set our screens to a white point of D50 or 5500K and Gamma is set to 2.2 on all screens except Apples for which we use 1.8.

We recommend a specrophotometre device such as a Gretag Mabeth eye-one display which measures output during a series of tests. A screen should be profiled and calibrated every two weeks for accuracy.

To test the accuracy of your monitor, it is helpful to compare two test images; one printed and one onscreen. For this purpose we recommend the Colour management Check-up kit produced by Kodak. This pack includes a swatch for verification that it is being viewed n the correct light. Remember florescent tubes and incandescent lamps can cause colour shifts, and prints are therefore balanced for daylight illumination.

Photoshop set up

Please see below for an example of our colour set up control panel.

We work in Adobe RGB (1998) Workspace for all Digital C-Types and Giclée prints (with the exception of digi-pix which must be viewed and supplied as sRGB) and advise clients to use “Europe Prepress defaults” as their Photoshop Colour Settings option as they usefully activate Photoshop safety features so that images are not affected by mis-conversions or the removal of ICC profiles. The CMYK settings you use will not affect the output of our RGB printers.

ICC SoftProof Profiles

Using Spectrum ICC Soft Proofing Profiles you can see a preview of the printed output on your screen. If you contact Spectrum sales staff we will be happy to send you our custom made swatch to complete the calibration process successfully.

Separate Soft Proof set up files are needed for the printer and paper combination that we use. Please click here to download a soft proof profile for the paper of your choice. (1MB zip file)

Installing a “.psf” file (SoftProof)

Drop the Photoshop Soft Proofing file in the following location:

For Mac OS X and above:
users>library>application support>adobe>colour>proofing

For PC Users:
C>Program files>common files>adobe>colour>proofing

How to SoftProof your file

In the Photoshop file you wish to preview, go to View>Proof Setup menu.

Select the Spectrum Proof Setup (it will show at the bottom of the list)

A tick mark appears next to “Proof Colours” for you to toggle on and off to identify problem areas in the image.

Under View menu there is an option for Gamut Warning. By selecting this option you can see those colours unavailable on the output printer.

Scanning

The calculator below is designed to help you decide what type of scan is best for your needs, calculating both size and type. Simply enter the dimensions of your finished image, set the type of print you require and the scan size will be generated. We are always happy to offer advice if you are unsure.

Digital C-Type & Giclee printing

Our preferred file format is RGB TIFF in the Adobe 98 workspace. Customers who are using Adobe 98 colour space should adjust their images using the ICC soft proof profiles following the instructions above ( link to ICC profiles) Alternatively if you work in sRGB, you can also supply files in this format if you prefer.

Files must be rasterized (Photoshop tiff, RGB, 8bit). Vector/Postscript files do not qualify for this pricing.

Files must be created with a proven ICC managed colour workflow system (Spectrum has tight lightjet linearization tolerances, but is not responsible for client colour management). "Adobe RGB 1998" is the recommended working space. We encourage clients to run test files at print time.

We will convert your files to the correct printer profile and individually colour manage each print.

Please create a folder for the image size. Please do not use illegal characters in filenames or folder names and ensure that you have the correct file extension on your images .jpg or .tiff

Borders should be saved on the file prior to printing. For custom sizes (e.g. 11” x 14”) a keyline should be added to assist trimming of white backgrounds. To preserve the layout of portfolios, all files should be saved at 305dpi as Tiffs or Jpg.

digi-pix

We suggest only the sRGB colourspace for digi-pix service. Unlike the Digital C-Type and Giclée services, the digi-pix service does not make use of ICC profiles, but instead uses the automated digital workflow of the Noritsu printer, which emulates an output profile. For this reason there are no soft proof profiles for digi-pix. The digi-pix service is fully automated and does not include pre-file inspection therefore we do not accept responsibility for errors due to customers using an alternative colourspace.

Files should be supplied on a PC formatted CD, camera cards or uploaded to our FTP server. Images should be filed in labelled folders e.g. prints to be printed 6x4 should be in a folder labelled ‘6x4’. Multiples must be with in separate folders and labelled, as all the files in each folder will be printed as labelled.

Files are printed to fit full frame on the paper size requested and we cannot guarantee borders and layout with this service. For portfolios and books, the Edition Digital C-Type Print service is recommended. .

If you have any Technical problems with our systems then please contact us