Archive for the 'uncategorized' Category

#59: Success: A Passion for What You Do

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by
Jim Raffel
on July 16, 2007
in blogging and uncategorized
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I Love the Smell of Ink in the Morning
Last installment I wrote about still loving the smell of ink in the morning. The magic of blank substrate going in one end of an imaging device and coming out the other end as an item of significantly greater value than the blank substrate still captivates me.

Running the siren
My next door neighbor is involved in law enforcement, and recently mentioned how when he got to run the siren on his motorcycle during a 4th of July parade it still gave him the same thrill as when he was a rookie. He has been a cop (his word) at least 10 years, and now works in some pretty heavy duty undercover situations, but has not lost the thrill and passion for the job.

Success is more then financial
I am not necessarily speaking of financial success here either. Writing each of these golden nuggets is honest to god pure joy for me. It is not always easy to sit down at the computer and get started, but once my fingers start typing it is one of the most gratifying business activities I engage in each week. No one pays me to write the golden nuggets, I do it because I love to do it. I love to do it because no less than once a week one of you will comment about how much you like getting the golden nugget email. At first I thought some of you were kidding. I have come to realize most (hopefully all) of you really do enjoy getting my sort of sometimes weekly thoughts about this industry we call home.

I write what I feel
My key to writing good golden nuggets is by and large to go with my gut. I have a great editor for the JimRaffel.com site (Michael Woods) who keeps me on the straight and narrow when I go crazy, but by and large I write about what I want from the perspective I want. As a result my passion of the subject shows. This is not technical writing, and it is not a research paper. The closest category it would fit in is commentary. Just remember commentators get to say what they want, because you allow us too. If no one reads or listens to us our commentary ceases to be meaningful.

Thank you
To all of you, thanks for allowing me to follow one of my passions. I wish for all of you the same good fortune in your career that you may follow your passion and be engaged in a career that inspires you everyday.

Golden Nugget #13 Monitor Calibration Works!

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on October 1, 2005
in calibration, monitors and uncategorized
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This should really be considered part two of Golden Nugget #12, which dealt with the importance of dimmable light booths (check www.JimRaffel.com if you did not get #12 in e-mail format). I decided in the past week to test this out myself.

For those who are not yet aware, our new ProofPass(t).com product pulls collected spectral data from our database, and displays it in your web browser in the sRGB color space (other color spaces will be available as time goes on). So, if your monitor is calibrated the colors displayed in the browser should closely match those of the color bar swatches on your printed samples.

The first step for me was to re-calibrate my notebook computer LCD. I must admit that with a busy Summer I had not calibrated since March. The correct schedule for someone like me who is not working color on a daily basis is probably more like a month. For those of you who look at critical color on your monitors regularly I would be more inclined to think weekly would be the correct interval.

Next, I started up my browser and brought up a blank white web-page. With my surround lighting off, I adjusted the brightness of the light booth to match the monitor. Then, I went to the ProofPass.com web-site, and displayed two color bars I had recently measured side-by-side in the browser window.

I then compared the two physical strips as viewed in my new light booth to the strips on screen. I would personally be very comfortable discussing shifts in the physical samples based upon what I was seeing on my monitor. In other words, remote diagnostics of hard copy color problems is now a reality.

As a side note, there are instruments available for measuring ambient light temperature. I used a Gretagmacbeth i1 design to confirm that my new light booth provides 5000K lighting, and it does. Use of the instrument is, however, how I determined all the surround lighting in our office needs to be turned off and the window blinds closed.

Over all, I was very impressed by the result of this little test.

Golden Nugget #11 Press Run Analysis / Print ’05 Information

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on September 22, 2005
in Print 05, uncategorized and viewing conditions
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Golden Nugget #11 Viewing Booths

While at the show I decided it was time to begin acquiring tools and technology for our new inkjet proofing test site. We have reached a point where we need to be able to simulate customer proofing situations on our office. As time goes on the complete set-up will include; an Epson 4800, AbsoluteProof RIP, Gretagmacbeth ProfileMaker, GTI light booth, and various color viewing tools from Beta Industries.

While acquiring our new light booth from GTI, I learned why the newer (and might I add a great deal more expensive) generation of light booths have a light source which can be dimmed. When I had almost completed my purchase, a friend stopped to say hello, and said “oh great you are getting a new light booth, you did get the dimmable version right?” OK, to say the least this friend is not subtle in letting me know if I did not get the dimmable version I was basically and idiot.

Not wanting to remain an idiot on this subject I asked the classic dumb question (I know there is no such thing as a dumb question, except one which goes un-asked), why do I need a dimmable light booth? I am sure more than 50% of my readers know the answer to this question, but as person who has been focuses on the hard copy proofing market for the last several years I did not. The answer is that if you are doing any form of monitor proofing and want to compare the monitor results to hard copy, you must be able to dim the light booth to match the white point of your CALIBRATED monitor.

Then, Bob from GTI showed me an example of this using an ICS soft proof, and a press sheet. He started with the booth at full intensity. The two did not appear to visually match. He then dimmed the booth to match the white point of the monitor, and basically it was now a perfect match.

Matching the white point is pretty easy too, even on the lower end model we have with just a knob to do the dimming. Simply bring up a white background on your monitor, and then put a blank piece of the paper you are proofing or printing in the light booth. Put the two next too each other and dim until the whites match.

In short, spend the extra money if you ever even think you might want to compare virtual proofs to hard copy proofs or press sheets in a light booth.

Waiting for DELAYED flight at MKE airport

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on August 20, 2005
in uncategorized
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MKE = Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport for those who travel a bit less than I do. So, the Northwest mechanics did go on strike at 12:01am this morning. Even though our flight is delayed it looks like we will be leaving just a little less than an hour late. So, I am blogging for the first time over our new Verizon nationwide broadband service. Since our office is in the “country” it’s not very fast there, but here in the major metro are of Milwaukee I’m getting very close to cable modem speeds. Pretty cool technology for fellow road warriors, and I know there are some of you on my e-mail list.

We appear to be all set for User’s Group. The fun all starts with registration Sunday at noon. If you are joining us, I look forward to seeing you soon. If you are not able to join us, I will try to keep the blog updated each day with comments and pictures.

First 2005 ColorMetrix User’s Group Post

Published
by
Jim Raffel
on August 18, 2005
in uncategorized
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For the next week, I will be utilizing the jimraffel.com blog as a way to keep anyone who cares up-to-date on the 2005 ColorMetrix User’s Group Conference. I decided to start today, because we just got done packing up all the boxes of materials for the meeting and shipping them off to the Mirage (see picture above).

As anyone who has ever done multiple presentations for a meeting knows, I am still working on all the content I will deliver at the meeting. I have done it enough times, however, that I no longer worry about not being done on time. Somehow or another the content always comes together. I also feel a bit of extemporaneousness in any presentation is a good thing.

The presentation I am most looking forward too is not until next Tuesday morning. I will be discussing the use of grey balance in the characterization of printing presses. I continue to be amazed how things which are old can become new again. As the previous post mentions we worked with people using grey balance as a characterization tool years ago, and all of a sudden it is back in vogue.

Well, I am looking forward to providing live reports from the conference. I may be the only one to read it, but it will still be fun. I will also try to post at least one picture a day, so those that did not come will wish they had!