Separation software dilema

[blue moon]

Just my .02 here. 

Quick background... I have been doing color seperations since the winter of 2000.  I went through 4 sep programs in 6 months before I gave up in frustration and taught myself how to sep by hand and how to automate the begining portion of what I do, all in order to acheive a superior product.

Dan has it right.  There is not a single sep program available that you will not have to spend 15 minutes to an hour fixing the results of.

I have personally watched several images almost dissapear through push button programs.  This is due to the pre-programmed set of curves and adjustments those programs do during thier color generating process.

Push button sep programs are all very very very image dependant for the results you want.  The brighter and more saturated the image, the better your results are.  The more "primary" your colors are (in the RGB computer color spectrum) the better your seperation will be.

With that said, the more popular programs have a better user interface.  Go with the one that gives you the best customer service and walkthrough.

Just understand that you will not be saving as much time as you hope to with your purchase.  But yes, you will save some time

Colin,

did you by any chance check out ICISS?

pierre

[mk162]

I have both EasyArt and QuikSeps.  Neither is perfect, but the shortcuts are nice.

[Colin]

Pierre,

ICISS is an awesome program akin to photoshop.  What Coudray had the programmers of that program do is frikin awesome.

Easiest way I can explain it is: It basically allows you to change the RGB color spectrum - Example R:255 G:000 B:000 for a solid RGB red - into a specified color pallet, typically pantone colors that YOU CHOOSE, as many as you want.  You want 12 colors, program in 12 colors.  You want 7 colors, program in 7 colors.  Not just the 6 that are available (internally) in Photoshop.  You program the curve adjustments you want each color generated to have and voila!  Beginner seps in the color pallet you have asked for.  And yes, you still need to tweak them for awesome prints.  The seps you get from Coudray are from this program and like Dan said, you still need to tweak them unless you pay extra.

A old customer of mine here in Seattle has the program, so I took the chance a few years ago to ask him about it and give me a quick walkthrough.  If I could (easily) aford it..... I would get it!  I just looked at their site... It contains less info than the last time I looked about 10 years ago.  Is it still priced around 10k?

End result, a superior seperation tool that quickly gets you to a pre-selected set of colors that you then, with your screen printing knowledge, make into press ready films.  But I am not sold on the cost Vs. return for the average shop, you need to be using the program several times a day to see a reasonable return IMO.

Colin

[blue moon]

Pierre,

ICISS is an awesome program akin to photoshop.  What Coudray had the programmers of that program do is frikin awesome.

Easiest way I can explain it is: It basically allows you to change the RGB color spectrum - Example R:255 G:000 B:000 for a solid RGB red - into a specified color pallet, typically pantone colors that YOU CHOOSE, as many as you want.  You want 12 colors, program in 12 colors.  You want 7 colors, program in 7 colors.  Not just the 6 that are available (internally) in Photoshop.  You program the curve adjustments you want each color generated to have and voila!  Beginner seps in the color pallet you have asked for.  And yes, you still need to tweak them for awesome prints.  The seps you get from Coudray are from this program and like Dan said, you still need to tweak them unless you pay extra.

A old customer of mine here in Seattle has the program, so I took the chance a few years ago to ask him about it and give me a quick walkthrough.  If I could (easily) aford it..... I would get it!  I just looked at their site... It contains less info than the last time I looked about 10 years ago.  Is it still priced around 10k?

End result, a superior seperation tool that quickly gets you to a pre-selected set of colors that you then, with your screen printing knowledge, make into press ready films.  But I am not sold on the cost Vs. return for the average shop, you need to be using the program several times a day to see a reasonable return IMO.

Colin

hey Colin,

yes it is still expensive. The quote I got from Mark is about $15k.
My thinking is, a program like that is just like another piece of equipment. It speeds up the production and when it's paid off, there is equity built up.  Another advantage is being able to bring the seps back in house. Dan is often so busy that he can not get to the stuff as soon as I'd like him to. This is not a knock on him, as it always gets done, but it would provide us with a little more flexibility with scheduling.

Do you know if there is a difference between what Mark is selling and the version on the European market? Theirs is a little cheaper. . .

pierre 

[Colin]

Wow!

My quote when I was emiling the company directly was just under 10k.... 10 years ago

From what I remember of the discussions at the time, the price was flexible depending on the salesman you were talking to.  But Mark could very well have the North American rights to distribute the program.  The company who makes it is based out of the UK so....

However, if you can aford it (eep), you do enough sim-process work, and you want to spend the time to learn an amazing tool for color seperations you may want to pull the trigger.

How much high end/sim-process work do you do on a daily/weekly basis?

[blue moon]

Wow!

My quote when I was emiling the company directly was just under 10k.... 10 years ago

From what I remember of the discussions at the time, the price was flexible depending on the salesman you were talking to.  But Mark could very well have the North American rights to distribute the program.  The company who makes it is based out of the UK so....

However, if you can aford it (eep), you do enough sim-process work, and you want to spend the time to learn an amazing tool for color seperations you may want to pull the trigger.

How much high end/sim-process work do you do on a daily/weekly basis?

we print simulated process about every other day, but most of it is reorders. We are still a very, very small shop (about 200k impressions per year). My guess is, maybe one job a week that would benefit from the software.
Yes, you are right, it is hard to justify it now. I just want to stay educated and get as much feedback as possible before we pull the trigger on it. I figure, we are about two years away from buying it, year and a half with a little bit of luck.

pierre

[Colin]

Ah, yea.  One new sep a week is not nearly enough work to justify that price

Hopefully soon though

Colin

[Dottonedan]

Dan is often so busy that he can not get to the stuff as soon as I'd like him to. This is not a knock on him, as it always gets done, but it would provide us with a little more flexibility with scheduling.

Thats the trouble with doing good work. The better you are, the busier you get and then sooner or later, you don't have enough time to do it all and people turn to automation and the next thing you know, your selling boiled peanuts and watermelon on the road side.

[Sbrem]

Or hiring some employees... ha ha ha, you're gonna love that.

Steve

[GraphicDisorder]

We've been happy with Separation Studio so far.  It does require some tweaking to get the best results.  BUT, it is still very quick. 

Here are some examples of ones we have printed from it:





























Now I dont suggest these are all perfect, hell probably all could be improved even.  BUT, these are at the very worst good results.

We did also use Dan for a sep just to try him out.  Was happy as well:

[Fluid]

Nice prints.  As with any of the sep programs out there it is best to know how to manually do the separations yourself in order to get the most out of these programs.  As mentioned above, highly saturated, primary colored designs sep the best. If you know how to do these types of separations manually, these programs will save hours on color separating by giving you a good foundation to start with.  I learned to do all these separation types manually before even thinking about these programs. I purchased on of the first Fast Film's back in the day which now I believe is called T Seps.  Running a couple sep routines will save me on average around 1-2 hours worth of time yet no matter what design, I spend on average 1-2 hours after running a routine cleaning up, adjusting and pulling my own colors.

As long as you don't take these progs as a "easy button" you will yield some great separations.  Most if not all will yield a decent separation yet if you want a great separation you need to know the basics of extracting and merging as well as a good knowledge of Color Theory.

Color Separations is an Art in itself and should be treated as such.  Check out Impressions and Printwear magazines online and search for the previous articles on color separations. You will find a ton of great info at your fingertips. I have been keeping articles from these magazines that go way back to when the magazines were twice the size they are now.  It is actually interesting seeing all the greats info evolve from 16 years ago to now.  ALso, The WWW is another great place as you can find all sorts of info and tutorials.

Keep the Ink Moving......

[artprofile]

Pierre,

ICISS is an awesome program akin to photoshop.  What Coudray had the programmers of that program do is frikin awesome.

A old customer of mine here in Seattle has the program, so I took the chance a few years ago to ask him about it and give me a quick walkthrough.  If I could (easily) aford it..... I would get it!  I just looked at their site... It contains less info than the last time I looked about 10 years ago.  Is it still priced around 10k?

Colin

http://printplanet.com/forums/prepress-workflow-discussion/17841-metal-fx-alternative-5-color-seps/2