Anybody using www.separo.io?

[Dottonedan]

Regarding the seps in a can type methods.


I'd have to say, what thy do best, is help those who are on a budget or want to control cost, these auto sep methods can sure help you decrease the time spent on a sep. They should be appreciated for that.


I am a believer that you, (each shop), should have a separation person in house. That should be the end goal, but there are many who will never need, never want, to get large enough to need a full time separator so they opt to do it themselves.


For those shops "doing it themselves", Above all else, I suggest you learn to do it manually first, before engaging in auto seps. It's kind of the reverse of what most do. They start to need sim process, so they try it, fail miserably, then purchase auto sep. THe sad part is that many will use (as is) and never tweak...and get 50/50 results. Those who then improve on their results, learn more, but to me, still walk through it at a slower pace and somewhat with a crutch till eventually you get good results fast (after years) of using it.


With the mind set, to keep at it manually, you gain much more skill than you do relying on an auto sep program...and then tweaking.
If you learn to get good results manually, then you can be all that much more accurate and efficient when you do go auto sep.

[tonypep]

Absolutely

[Sbrem]

Regarding the seps in a can type methods.


I'd have to say, what thy do best, is help those who are on a budget or want to control cost, these auto sep methods can sure help you decrease the time spent on a sep. They should be appreciated for that.


I am a believer that you, (each shop), should have a separation person in house. That should be the end goal, but there are many who will never need, never want, to get large enough to need a full time separator so they opt to do it themselves.


For those shops "doing it themselves", Above all else, I suggest you learn to do it manually first, before engaging in auto seps. It's kind of the reverse of what most do. They start to need sim process, so they try it, fail miserably, then purchase auto sep. THe sad part is that many will use (as is) and never tweak...and get 50/50 results. Those who then improve on their results, learn more, but to me, still walk through it at a slower pace and somewhat with a crutch till eventually you get good results fast (after years) of using it.


With the mind set, to keep at it manually, you gain much more skill than you do relying on an auto sep program...and then tweaking.
If you learn to get good results manually, then you can be all that much more accurate and efficient when you do go auto sep.

This... I learned the manual way, before there were programs/actions to help. But I bought them too along the way because they really helped cut down on the labor, but I will still spend a fair amount of time tweaking, based on my experience.

Steve

[Jay Kay]

Won't that be tough to evaluate a test drive without their proprietary inks?

that's what I thought too, though indeed, it is pretty interesting. I will say that I've just separated a job using Sim Seps from our fellow board member Jay Kay. It was very fast, and very easy to use, I'm hoping to go to press with a 9 color tropical birds design by the end of the day; considering they are due tomorrow, that's probably a good idea...

Steve

Steve,
I hope you can share your results. And for clarification, "Sim Seps" was the working beta title I was using earlier this year. The plug-in has released and is now called "Hi-Fi Ink". Also, from Dan, I agree with the "seps in a can" methods. I like to know the what, why and hows and do stuff manually, it can only make your end results better, especially if you know what to change before you even begin seping.

[Nation03]

Regarding the seps in a can type methods.


I'd have to say, what thy do best, is help those who are on a budget or want to control cost, these auto sep methods can sure help you decrease the time spent on a sep. They should be appreciated for that.


I am a believer that you, (each shop), should have a separation person in house. That should be the end goal, but there are many who will never need, never want, to get large enough to need a full time separator so they opt to do it themselves.


For those shops "doing it themselves", Above all else, I suggest you learn to do it manually first, before engaging in auto seps. It's kind of the reverse of what most do. They start to need sim process, so they try it, fail miserably, then purchase auto sep. THe sad part is that many will use (as is) and never tweak...and get 50/50 results. Those who then improve on their results, learn more, but to me, still walk through it at a slower pace and somewhat with a crutch till eventually you get good results fast (after years) of using it.


With the mind set, to keep at it manually, you gain much more skill than you do relying on an auto sep program...and then tweaking.
If you learn to get good results manually, then you can be all that much more accurate and efficient when you do go auto sep.

Dan, do you have any recommendations or tutorials on how to sep something a little more complex then standard spot color jobs? I've been getting better at separating jobs with fades/gradients but the sim process stuff (which we hardly do) is still intimidating. Chances are I would still sub out the sim process seps because even if I could do them myself, I'd still be at a loss for what colors to use for the best results.

Luckily, for right now, most of my stuff is spot colors and I can sep those quickly. An in house art guy would be great, but that's just not in the cards right now.

[Sbrem]

Won't that be tough to evaluate a test drive without their proprietary inks?

that's what I thought too, though indeed, it is pretty interesting. I will say that I've just separated a job using Sim Seps from our fellow board member Jay Kay. It was very fast, and very easy to use, I'm hoping to go to press with a 9 color tropical birds design by the end of the day; considering they are due tomorrow, that's probably a good idea...

Steve

Steve,
I hope you can share your results. And for clarification, "Sim Seps" was the working beta title I was using earlier this year. The plug-in has released and is now called "Hi-Fi Ink". Also, from Dan, I agree with the "seps in a can" methods. I like to know the what, why and hows and do stuff manually, it can only make your end results better, especially if you know what to change before you even begin seping.

Screens were burned last night, we go to press later this morning, so yes, I'll be posting the results. And yes, it's Hi-Fi Ink, sorry about that.

Steve

[Sbrem]

I forgot to post this the other day... 9c, 50 line, on assorted colors, using Jay Kay's Hi-Fi action, one remake, had to tone down the black. I also tweaked some other areas, and got what I expected on press.

Steve

[mk162]

Wow, nice. 

[1964GN]

Really nice print!

All of the click2seps programs I have tried seems to be a tad heavy on the black.

Speaking as the in house sep guy, these click2seps programs have saved countless hours, and $$. I have yet to find one that works without manipulation but I'm usually 75% plus there in 6 seconds.

I get to be on the shop floor every time one of my seps goes to print. I think that has made me a better separator. I see what happens on press, how it's adjusted on press, and what I can do to make the press ops job easier, faster, and produce a higher quality print. I get nervous and excited every time that first set up shirt goes around.

[Jay Kay]

Looks pretty nice. Do you remember what mesh counts you used with 50lpi and those colors?

[Sbrem]

Looks pretty nice. Do you remember what mesh counts you used with 50lpi and those colors?

Yep, 280 for all, except black, printing at #8 was a 305, and the highlight white printing last was a 355. We printed one with the black printing second, and it looked good, but would have had to move all the screens over one station, so, next time. We don't get as much of this kind of work as I'd like, but when we do, I'd like for us to be able to pull it off and have a happy customer.

Steve

[zanegun08]

Just a fun follow up.  Our separator with an Ego retired, so we are without an in house person.  I dabble, but my time is better suited in other aspects than trying to learn separations.

We still sub out still, but when need a quick turnaround, we have turned to Separo.io for color work, and use UltraSeps for greyscale.

With separo, I tried the 30 day trial, and tried a few separations, but didn't print any as I thought the results were too dull in photoshop.  The person who runs the site emailed why I cancelled and I actually followed up with the feedback, and there is a dot gain option in the dashboard that I didn't know about which I think defaulted at like 50% dot gain so that is why the photoshop file looked dull.

Anyhow, since then I asked for another 30 day trial, and actually ran a few on press.  Since I know what to expect, I'm able to adjust before in photoshop, and then after in separated file.  There isn't a ton of control within Separo itself, but you can pick your own colors, add and remove channels.  Currently you can't change the print order until you are in photoshop, but you can delete out all the channels and start a custom color pallet and select the colors you would like to use in the print order you want.

Anyhow, for $49 for 10 separations, it becomes a steal.  However it has to work well, as if you save some money here, but then you have to fiddle, and make changes on press, that savings is quickly eaten away.

So it's about knowing the right tool for which job, and when to use which one.  I've done some photo realistic photos, some vector spot color designs which have way too many colors to print, and some cartoony images with great results.

Give the 30 day trial a shot, it works, but it isn't magic, if you don't know what to expect when printing, spend the $15 per color and send your art to someone that can handle each artwork uniquely.

http://www.myseps.com - $15 per color
https://dottonedesigns.wordpress.com - $15 per color (Dan you still doing these?)
http://netseps.com - Ranges, the more you do the cheaper they become

But for the right art, it works great, and saves (makes) us a lot of extra money, and we aren't waiting on a separator to do the job, as once you hit separate it takes around 5-10 minutes to prepare your file for download.

[Dottonedan]

Hi Zane,

Yes, I'm still open for seps every day. I just don't advertise that much. They've been keeping me pretty busy. Like tee orders for smaller shops tho, it rains and then it dries up a little, then pours down in and then dries up a little. Due to my day job as a separator, I do about 1 or two easier ones every night or so. Sometimes I get nothing one night and four the next. Maybe about 7-10 a week with many coming in near Thurs. I think that's because they know they can go home and I can be working on their job over the weekend.
I really should take that web page down. I don't think it's looked at and when someone emails me from there, It takes some time to get to me for some reason. Like a day late. I don't promote or use that page much.  I think I just get the people that have known me for years.
At my day job, I can do about 10-17 jobs a day (depending) and at times, need to pass some out. I job about 4-8 jobs a month or more to a couple people now myself, so I am reminded of some of the pitfalls with getting files back.  I'll check out Sepao.io again. I did once, but don't remember how it was.

[tonypep]

All true and did not mean to offend. You know me enough to be better than that! Just trying to spread the gravy a bit.