New Adobe CC and M&R's RIP

[Ron Pierson]

My Art room has been cursing along just fine until now. 5 years using M&R and ColorRIP with very few issues. I had Photoshop 6CS and Illy 6CS running M&R color RIP to our two I Images. We have a 5-600 screen a day requirement so we need speed and accuracy. I had ALL that until we upgraded. here is what we did........

Upgraded all our art stations - 6 of them - to the new Adobe Illy CC and Photoshop CC. Re-did profiles to stop the naming of PC's to a person and are now called "art #1" - "art #2" - ect. We use M&R's ColorPRINT RIP. We have two I-Image ST units one brand new and one has some age to it. We just started using two ColorRIP stations to run files and was set up by M&R's tech's - I have confidence they were set up right - I don't know who the tech was. We set up the second one because the old first one was giving us lots of grief. We needed a quick solution for "art to screen-room". All PC's are only 1-2 years old and in top shape. All are running in 16 Gigs if RAM. We are not a MAC shop in any way.

now - my RIP's have gone south...
RIP's for a while, then jams (we have to restart)
Runs OK, then won't "reverse" images
Runs 3-4 jobs OK then cuts images in half
Runs then stops
(this happens on both RIP stations)

M&R on phone (great support guys) - reinstalled RIP- re set up hot folders - re did everything.
Art room runs for almost a day and back to the same problem

We are at a loss...
Did I miss something in upgrading Adobe?
Did I miss something in new profiles?
Did I miss something in the re-setup of the M&R RIP?
Any suggestions please.

Would you fly in a tech - or know any willing to look into this issue

Thanks in advance for any comments
RP

[Colin]

I run CC 2018 and I have not had any of the issues with the rip program that you are describing.

I have watched my trapping and fine lines have issues here and there where it removes or shrinks thin areas.  Or my overlap/trap isnt consistent, but we are talking about the space of a pixel or two at 600 dpi.... we run 1200x900 best detail for all images.

We have made the adjustment to trap a bit more....

Right now I am having an issue where on a very fine circle R - the leading edge is pushed in and the dots are not laying down clear, then the edges are not as sharp as they used to be.... I need to call support for that.  All clean vector.

In your case, I would have M&R come out and fix it... depending on the issue, it may be at their cost.

[Underbase37]

Do you have the old version of illustrator that was working for you/ or use the option to download a previous version of Illustrator?

Maybe try to install that back on one of the new PC and see if there is a difference on the two.

We recently had a few small issues when upgrading are art PC with the new illustrator. The problem was not the same, and  was  actually in our name extension, but while troubleshooting with M & R we reinstalled the rip program, now I'm not %100 but it look as maybe the RIP program is an updated version too. That said we have had a few things that seem to be talking to each other a bit differently from illustrator to the RIP, very small things that we have been able to get around, and not the same as a problem you seem to be having.

Do you have team viewer on your art PC's?
This has been a big help in the past for us.

The other thought I had was maybe the file size has changed? I know I have seem our RIP pause and Hiccup at times when the file size is extremely big ( usually when I'm messing with art).

Just a few thoughts. Hope you get this figured out.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

[Dottonedan]

I run CC 2018 and I have not had any of the issues with the rip program that you are describing.

I have watched my trapping and fine lines have issues here and there where it removes or shrinks thin areas.  Or my overlap/trap isnt consistent, but we are talking about the space of a pixel or two at 600 dpi.... we run 1200x900 best detail for all images.

We have made the adjustment to trap a bit more....

Right now I am having an issue where on a very fine circle R - the leading edge is pushed in and the dots are not laying down clear, then the edges are not as sharp as they used to be.... I need to call support for that.  All clean vector.

In your case, I would have M&R come out and fix it... depending on the issue, it may be at their cost.

There is a possibility that your file may be at 600ppi and then re-sized just a bit. I do this a lot. I have to make sure the file is at print size, then change my resolution to the rez I want.  If at 600, then changing file size to your print size, that will adjust/blur your registration size by a pixels or lets say 1/5 pixels. It depends on how much your size change is.

[Colin]

OH, sorry I wasnt more clear.  That is for Vector files.  I have watched edges get wonky...  It is an issue in the rip.  I have changed how I do my base whites now, but I used to do a .5 trap with a color that I wont print.  Then take my white base and select multiply so I could send over a single file to the rip.  That would throw the rip a curve ball on occasion... I have watched fine lines disappear that way and more complex pieces literally disappear. 

I haves witched up what I do now, I actually remove the trapped area from the base so it is physically smaller, but I have still seen things go... oddly... If I try to give a measurement to the change its close to the equivalent of 1 or two pixels at 600 dpi...

Right now I have noticed on a single color image my small circle R images are getting egg shaped.  But its not a complete circle, the leading edge of the circle looks like it disintegrated into dots, then prints fine, then the back edge gets fuzzy....

But I am also looking really closely at what we are producing and taking pictures of my stencils.... I think they look neat.

Its hard to capture this one properly with my phone... 225s mesh and the circle r is really tiny.

[Colin]

I keep thinking it needs a head alignment.... but its a single head.  The test lines print "perfectly".  I have done several cleanings etc, and it still did it to this file.  The preview image on screen is perfect.

Sorry to derail Ron's original post!  But to support Ron's comments, I have noticed some bugs myself, just not at his level.

[Dottonedan]

Colin, hit me up with an email about this or create another thread and I will get back to that.

[Dottonedan]

Ron,

The new CS may have something going on that the RIP is not accustom to. That's possible for sure.
And I have experienced a few jobs lately over the past 6 months that have (one color) just not come out well. It will only print a portion of that color.

Here is what I found so far.

For some reason, art elements that have been copied over into a vector file or a raster file (that originated from a PDF), get wonky or corrupted. I don't know if that is stemming from the updated PDF program like Adobe reader or that latest version of acrobat...or if it's the translation into the newer updated art software. That's what I narrowed it down to, that the Color Print Rip is having difficulties with.

I have used a few workarounds. Each worked on one file and not another.

1, Create Photoshop sep channels and save as a DCS2. All seps in that one file can work.

2, If it does not work (as one file), then SPLIT the channels up into individual greyscale files. Each color in its own file, name the file as it's color name...and save as a DCS2 file.  That will also work straight as a PSD file and will also be much smaller in file size and rip faster. I like sending straight psd files. The only downfall is that since each color is actually a greyscale channel, you will not get a color preview (in Color Print) before you rip. It will show you grey color channels and not whatever pms color they are assigned. Some like that before they RIP.  I don't use that anyways, so doesn't matter to me.

3rd, This is one method that worked on a difficult file that would not work with the above.
Do all of the same as above, with the DCS2, but then go back into Illustrator and place and LINK that Multi color DCS2. Then, save as a multi color PDF. That worked and ripped fine in my case. 

[dsh]

This may not be the same, but the last photoshop upgrade really messed up my printing for films in the dialog box, and things like scanning into PS.