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Color Consistency

Created by: Viovio Support,Last modification on 19 Mar 2008 [01:23 UTC] by Christian Fowler
Viovio works very hard to produce the best looking books we possibly can, and our books are beautiful. The quality is outstanding at a great price, and our customers are very pleased. However, all digital printing has some variation in color between print runs. All of our consumer customers are ecstatic with our product, but for professionals accustomed to the world of offset printing, we have some further explanation below...

The digital printing revolution is here, and a whole new world of opportunity has arisen. We are part of that revolution. With affordable one-off printing it is economical to print a single copy of a book. Viovio and many other print-on-demand facilities use the latest digital and print technologies, which scarcely existed 15 years ago.

While the advancements of digital printing have been remarkable, there is much work to be accomplished. One area that is still under development is color consistency. Digital printing is making strides to provide the agility of one-off printing while also providing the color consistency of traditional offset printing. Many factors affect the color consistency of digital machines, in particular, humidity and temperature. Simply put, there will be color variation over time and between machines each time a book is printed, because the environment will have changed.

Viovio is committed to offering consistent color. Our team works daily to contribute our part to the revolution. In the mean time, you can expect some slight color variation from one order to the next. If you are looking for the perfect color match every time, offset printing is still your only option. However, due to high setup costs hundreds or even thousands of copies are required to make the effort worthwhile for both the printer and the customer.

Our best advice, at this time, is to exercise patience and adjust your expectations to the realities of current technology. For our current products, our hardback and soft covers are printed in different facilities and the difference between printings will be noticeable. We recommend if you are purchasing one copy as a proof and plan to purchase a second copy later; for the proof, order the same product you plan to purchase later. By doing this you will eliminate the variation between pieces of equipment.


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Color Targets

by Stephen Berezin, Thursday 02 of November, 2006 [16:32:23 UTC]
questionIs it Possible to upload and print a color target so a color profile may be obtained thus ameliorating some color inconsistancy?

Thanks
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Re: Color Targets

by David Ramage, Thursday 02 of November, 2006 [23:56:09 UTC]
That will help with adjusting your monitor to the printer used by Viovio. You'll know, for example, that the books always come out a bit darker or lighter or redder than your monitor generally and you can adjust your files before you send them. I find that I add about 10% saturation and darken the file by about a quarter stop on the glossy paper to better match my system at home. It all depends on how your monitor at home is set - so don't go by my formula. Definitely order some short 5 -10 page trial books with different kinds of images - high contrast, muted, colorful, monochromatic, etc. This way you'll get a ballpark idea of how the prints look compared with what you get at home.

But it won't help with the consistency. One copy of the book might be a really close match to your monitor and then if you order it again a week or two later, it's possible that there might be a slight color shift - one time it might have a hint of extra magenta, another time a hint of cyan. Most people won't notice but if you're particular, you'll see it.

As Viovio says, something you have to live with with the current technology at the price point they offer.

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Re: Color Targets

by connie, Thursday 02 of November, 2006 [19:30:28 UTC]
Stephen, I'm so sorry for some reason I'm not exactly sure what you are asking. If you want to upload a test page and print that so that you can see how the colors display in print then yes, you could do that. If that is not what you are asking let me know what I missed.
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Re: Color Targets

by Stephen Berezin, Saturday 04 of November, 2006 [16:57:46 UTC]
That's exactly whatI want. Maybe I didn't use the correct term. By color target I mean a group of color patches that can be read by a spectrophotometer so as to create a profile that can be used in Photoshop. We hope to adjust skin tones for mmore consistancy.

Thanks
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Re: Color Targets

by charles matter, Wednesday 07 of May, 2008 [22:45:29 UTC]
I think a better way to describe this would be a press profile that we could then use to softproof image files in PhotoShop with.. then tag the files with that profile.. Problem with this is the fact that different presses will be used for different runs, and.. obviously these will not have identical characteristics... not to mention the variables of temperature and humidity, etc.
However.. perhaps someone at VioVio could clarify this..(taken from the VioVio 'Color Consistency' blurb above)
"We recommend if you are purchasing one copy as a proof and plan to purchase a second copy later; for the proof, order the same product you plan to purchase later. By doing this you will eliminate the variation between pieces of equipment."

I work with other smaller digital press/binderies.. some on a one-to-one personal basis who do print on the same presses all the time. For some reason no one in the Digital Offset world seems to be willing (yet?) to commit to definitive press profiles.