HP Designjet Z2100 Printing Guide [HP Raster Driver] - Proof a press with Pantone colors [Adobe Photoshop CS2 - Windows]

The goal of a press proof is to accurately reproduce the output that would normally be printed from a
press. Presses usually use Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black inks to create their artwork. Some
presses have the capability to add a pre-mixed ink also called Spot Color. One of the most well
known spot color tables is the Pantone Spot Coated tables. If they do not have this capability, they
will emulate the pre-mixed ink by a combination of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black; this is what is
known as Pantone Process Coated color.
In order to accurately reproduce a Pantone Spot Color or a Pantone Process Color from the press, we
should work with CMYK jobs rather than RGB (which is the color mode used by monitors, scanners
and digital cameras).
As today’s operating systems do not handle CMYK data (internally they work in RGB mode), we need
to bypass it in order to work in CMYK. For this we can use PostScript and so consequently, we will
need Raster Image Processor software (RIP) to process the job and send it to the printer. Furthermore,
RIPs like the EFI Designer Edition for HP have advance Pantone Spot Color matching capabilities,
called HP Professional Pantone Emulation.
Therefore we do not recommend that you use the HP Driver to perform this task.
1. First recommendations:
• Refer to
Media type functionality & features and choose the most appropriate media.
• It is essential you have the media type correctly calibrated with the printer and print mode,
consult the
Calibrate my printer section.
• In order to get a correct display, it’s also essential you have the monitor calibrated, refer to
the
Calibrate my monitor section.
2. Open Adobe Photoshop CS2.
3. Configure the Color Settings, Edit menu > Color Settings…:
• Make sure the More Options are displayed.
• Working Space > RGB: Select the profile of the scanner or camera that you have used to
get the photos (source profile), if you don’t have it, select Adobe RGB (1998) or sRGB
IEC61966-2.1.
• Working Space > CMYK: Euroscale Coated v2 (for Europe), U.S. Web Coated (SWOP)
v2 (for US) and Japan Standard v2 (for Japan).
• Color Management Policies: Preserve Embedded Profiles.
• Profile Mismatches: Check Ask When Opening and Ask When Pasting.
• Missing Profiles: Check Ask When Opening.
• Conversion Options > Intent: Absolute Colorimetric.
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