New Projects

I had a meeting today to discuss some new responsibilities. I will be working with an outside company to develop a customized RIP for our printer, currently in development. This is a great opportunity to make sure the printing software interacts perfectly with our art files.

Profiling the Printer

I spent all day profiling the printer, making sure I will get the best prints, because I was just informed that a potential customer / partner will be here tomorrow to check out our facilities. I have been asked to print various samples ASAP.

Eye-One / iMac

The Eye-One colorimeter and the iMac arrived today. The Eye-One will allow me to profile the printer to achieve more accurate color. The iMac will allow me to use the image expert software to quantify the print quality.

WoodGrain 3

While researching our printing options, I came across information stating that the bitmap conversion in Photoshop has the screen option I need to get the proper frequency and angle to print the woodgrain pattern. I ended up selecting each channels separately and changing to bitmap mode using the necessary settings. I then save the resulting image as a tiff, imported into illustrator, added the cornermarks, crosshairs, and art tags. This turned out to be a great way to accomplish this, because now the frequency and angle of the dots are rasterized into each image, rather than being subject to the RIPs interpretation.

WoodGrain 2

The decision was made to pursue the woodgrain pattern via traditional screenprinting techniques. I was able to take the CMYK image, convert it to a multichannel document using existing colors for the separations. I am working in Adobe CS3, so when I called our production art department, we ran into an issue. While I could send images to the RIP/imagesetter using the screen options in Photoshop, they could not. It seems Adobe removed these options from the print dialog in CS5. Tomorrow I will work with the art department in Sidney to get these printed.

Marketing board

I have been asked to print boards for displaying some of our finishes. I have never printed on foam core boards before. Aside from adjusting the head height, I didn't expect any differences, I was wrong. The board was slightly wider than the metal blanks I usually print on, so the vacuum did not hold it to the belt on one end. This caused some head strikes. I added the additional vacuum chamber, but this time the paper that sandwiches the foam started to curl at a corner causing some head strikes. After cleaning the heads a couple times, I finally got the boards completed for the marketing group.

Marketing Meeting

I was asked to participate in a brainstorming session with the marketing group. An intern had researched existing displays of kitchen backsplashes at local hardware and home improvement stores. We then discussed the best ways to display and market our product. I had never been involved in such a session, and found it extremely enjoyable.

Ghost image / shadow

Over the weekend, the printer seems to have developed a severe problem with satellites / overspray. I spent the entire day cleaning and purging the heads, re-running the alignment test and readjusting the head heights. This seems to have reduced, if not eliminated the issue.

New RIP

I was just informed that I will be working with an outside contractor who is developing a RIP for our application. This will be very beneficial. I will have input on how the files will be handled, and the RIP will be tailored to our needs.

Test Results

All of the testing has been completed with the off the shelf inks. Though it did surprise us with a few of it's results, there is no way it will be acceptable to any of our customers. The next step is to either develop inks internally, develop a topcoat internally, apply an existing film, or any combination of the three. Thankfully it is not my call. For now, I will just continue testing and tweaking the printer.

Photo

In a break from design and digital printing, our marketing department asked that I take a stock image of a kitchen, and make variations of it as if the cabinets were made of different woods. Luckily the original image had white cabinets. This allowed me to add an overlay layer for each wood pattern (with a layer opacity of 79%). I then duplicated the original image and masked off everything but the cabinet handles and placed this in front of the wood layers. I added additional layers to enhance the shadows and highlights. I am pretty happy with the final results, and the marketing department was pleased.

Wood Grain

We are once again pursuing a viable woodgrain look. At one point we had screen printed a burl walnut pattern for the interior trim pieces of simi trucks. Our process resulted in about a 20% success rate. 80% scrap meant that this was not a profitable business. The new goal is to produce the parts using digital printing. I have created the pattern and printed a sample. Every thing looks good. There is so much movement in the pattern, that stitching it together seamlessly was not difficult, just a little time consuming. Now if we can come up with a topcoat that passes customer specification, we might be able to sell the product.

Low res images

I started testing low resolution images on this machine. As I expected, the 72 dpi images looked pretty bad. I then opened a 300 dpi image. The original image was 4x5, so I decided to try printing it at twice it's normal size. I was amazed at how well it printed. There was no pixelation. I then proceeded to print it at for times it's normal size. With an initial resolution of 300 dpi, this would equal 75 dpi at it's new size. To my amazement, it still looked really good. I can only assume that the RIP is using some type of interpolation to smooth out the image. I then enlarged the image even father, to 8 times it's normal size, and I finally started to see some of the pixelation I was expecting.

Design Meeting

I was supposed to have a design meeting to discuss the next step with the prototypes I had worked on, but it has been postponed. I am told I will be spending 8 hours a week on design again soon, though.

Printing White Again

I tried printing a new vector image that required white ink. I opened it in Illustrator and changed the 0% CMYK areas to WHITE_INK and re-saved it. I then proceeded to try printing. Everywhere that was specified as WHITE_INK was still being printed as a dropout. I tried everything within the RIP, but still had no luck. It turns out that all the files I had successfully printed before were saved as PDFs. This one was an EPS. Apparently EPS files discard spot colors. Once I saved it as a PDF, everything worked fine.

April Fools

It's April fools, and there was not a single prank at work today. Initial testing showed the ink from our supplier is failing every customer spec. This was to be expected, but I kept hoping it was someone's idea of an April fools joke.

Color optimization

The RIP has an advanced setting for "Color Optimization". I must use the "Clean Colors" option to get pure CMYK output. Thankfully this allowed me to print test patterns of every color, and even every color over white. I then turned this option off to get a black test panel using all colors.

Printing Solid CMYK

I have completed the head adjustments, and everything is printing well. I had been asked to print a large block of each ink color for testing purposes. Our customers have strict performance testing criteria, and we need to see how this off the shelf product does. When I attempted to print a solid block of Magenta, I saw some Cyan in it. When I printed Yellow, I saw both Cyan and Magenta in it. It appears the RIP is attempting color correction. I have started testing every option to eliminate this.

Back from training

I am back from training in New Hampshire, and immediately have an issue. The print heads all seem to be slightly misaligned. Looks like I will be spending the next two days re adjusting everything.

Training in New Hampshire

I am in training in New Hampshire all week. I am learning the image expert / jet expert software and hardware. It will better allow me to quantify the print quality, and can be used to directly access individual print heads as well.

White print head

The white print head is a pain. I had to purge it if it was idle for more than 20 minutes and the nozzles seem to never all want to fire at the same time. After spending all day tweaking, I am finally happy with the output. I am taking tomorrow off to spend some time with the family,so There will not be a post.

Print Head Adjustments

I spent the entire day adjusting print heads, and I still did not get to the white head. I am happy with all others, but the white will be difficult do to trying to see the test patterns on aluminum.

Project Update Review

Working only half a day sucks, but it is even worse when the entire day is taken up by meetings. Today was the project update review. It was great to present the progress made with my project, and even better to learn about the other ongoing projects, but I accomplished absolutely nothing today.

Digital printing Test Image 2

After reviewing the image, there were a few changes requested. I made the changes, and forwarded a PDF for review, getting a positive response. I then printed the image. Based on the printed image, I will need to make a few adjustments before I am happy with the print quality. It looks like the head to head (especially the white to all others) needs adjusted.

Digital printing Test Image

I am in the process of creating a digital printing test image. We need an image to check many aspects of the printing process. I included color blocks of each color (CMYK) ranging from 0 to 100%, lines to test motion, lines of varying widths for each color, and diagonal lines. I also included many standard font sizes using both serif and sans serif versions and positive and negative variations. I will be reviewing with the head of this project tomorrow.

Printing with White Continued 2

After racking my brains for too many days, I decided to go through every setting in the RIP. The software has an option for the white ink that says "Spot color WHITE_INK". I decided to create a spot color in Illustrator called WHITE_INK, and change fill of the eagles head to this color. I saved the file as an EPS, and this made no difference, I then tried it as a PDF, and if printed the head White instead of the dropout. I then tried changing all areas of the image that used white to use WHITE_INK, and it printed fine. The only problem was that using the Spot color WHITE_INK option in the RIP stopped it from printing white underneath all the other areas. I changed the white ink option to "Inked image", and it printed exactly how I wanted.

Printing with White Continued

I re saved the Harley file and various formats trying to eliminate the drop out issue I am having. Unfortunately, it does not seem to matter whether I print from a vector (EPS of PDF) or if I rasterize it (Photoshop EPS, Photoshop PDF, tif, of jpg, There is no difference in how the white/drop out is printed.

Printing with White

I printed the Harley image again today, but did so on bare aluminum printing a white base. This allowed me to find a major issue. The RIP software is interpreting the areas filled with white (0% CMYK) as a drop out. At this point the only way to get white to print where I want is to change the value to at least 1% CMYorK. This is not a major issue, but I need to try to find a better way.

File Set up

Needed additional images for testing the printer, I went through some of my old files. These are the types of images some customers might provide, so I randomly chose a couple. One image was an Illustrator file of the Harley Davidson eagle and shield. I was happy with this image when I created it about six years ago, but after I printed it I found several flaws. No one else noticed them, but I will probably adjust the image when I get some time. It is interesting to see how my personal standards have changed in such a short time.

Change of plans

My priorities have been changed, and I will be focusing primarily on the printer for the time being. It is crucial for the continued growth of this department that we have a viable work center soon.

Design Review

The design review went better than I expected. The lead designer was pleased with my offerings, though she did have a few suggestions. I have started the requested changes, and will get to see prototypes of all designs before long.

Design Improvements

I am finishing up my initial designs for review next week. I feel they are all decent, though probably not amazing designs. I feel I may not have spent enough time on each, but just getting back into it, I am happy. I can imagine each one being used in multiple products, so I am hopeful that at least one will make it to production eventually.

Google Docs solution

I have not been designing the last two days, instead I have been implementing a couple solutions for the new printer. The RIP software was installed on a standard dell desktop without any MS Office software. I need to create a log for tracking everything ran through the printer as well as documenting anything I learn about it. Google docs was the perfect solution. I created a basic document for all my notes about the printer and a second document for basic procedures. I then created a form and spreadsheet to act as my "Printer Line Log". This allows me to easily input any print job I do, and also can be continued once the project is handed over to the Rhodes State students all for no added cost!

Half days suck

Only working half days really messes up any creative flow I seem to get going. Just when I feel I am making progress, it's time to shut everything down for the day and head to class.

Design again

Now that we can agree what our production is capable of, I am getting back to design. I had never considered using architecture for inspiration, but I am impressed with the direction it has led me in.

Meetings - Got to love them

I have spent the last two days in meetings discussing possible customer desires vs production capabilities. I understand that it is a necessary topic, but I did not get to work on design at all.

It's comming back to me

I only work half days on Mondays (9 hours the rest of the week), so I didn't have much time yesterday to do a whole lot. Today I am making progress on my first designs. I am doing all the designs in gray-scale at this time. It allows me to imagine the end product being available using any tinted topcoat we have. Besides that, I am no good at deciphering today's hot color trends. I feel I have made real progress in developing the basic concepts, and am even remembering some of the tricks I had figured out over the years regarding patterns, swatches, and path finder uses. I hope to have some basic images to share soon.

Continuing Design

I previously worked in an art department, and feel I was pretty good. I was confident in my ability, and new the software and expectations well. That was almost four years ago. I feel like I am starting completely from scratch.

I took my basic design ideas from yesterday and started trying to flesh them out. I could barely remember any keyboard commands. granted I am now working with Adobe CS3 when I am used to Adobe CS, but things have not changed that much. I have just lost my touch. I seem to forget all the little tricks that used to save me so much time. Hopefully it will all come back to me soon.

First Design

I have been handed several printouts of unique buildings with distinct architectural elements and asked to create multiple designs inspired by these that will showcase our printing and coating abilities.

I probably spent two hours going through the images trying to understand what the architect was trying to showcase. I selected several images that I think I can recreate the feel of. I started by creating a template in illustrator that will allow me to put three samples on a common sized aluminum panel. We can shear the finished parts if need be.

I then began sketching out on paper what my interpretation is. I always like to use pencil and paper in the beginning stages. It is less restrictive, and more organic.

New Begining

Once again I am attempting to start a blog. This is for school purposes, so maybe I'll stick with it. The goal is to discuss my current position at work as it relates to an internship. Because I am working in RD&D I will not be able to post all information due to it's proprietary nature, but I will discuss everything I can.

For a brief overview, I am working on a digital printing-direct to substrate system. The printer I am using was purchased with accompanying RIP software. It was installed and then handed to me to see what I can do with it. I must learn all I can about the hardware, software and file formatting on my own. The object being to possibly use this equipment for rapid prototyping and/or small order order production. I will eventually be instructing another group on how to use this, and then handing over the equipment.

The second part of my job is with the "Finish Development Group". I will be creating original designs to help promote our company within developing markets such as automotive interiors and consumer electronics. I will also be working with design samples from existing customers.

These two responsibilities can possibly overlap into creating original designs and then determining the best printing process and actually producing samples.

Hopefully my future posts will be a little shorter and a bit more interesting.