April 2016
How does Color-Logic handle software updates and maintenance?
All updates are handled via the S.M.A.R.T Centre area on our website. Our licensed printers have their own unique login area, with their own installers, with their own unique passwords – It's those installations that we track by linking the printer login area with the installations via IP addresses.
Here's an example of a printers access details, which is unique to that printer:
A Printers external customers, agencies, designers etc, who purchase one of the printers "Design Suite & FX-Viewer" vouchers, is then provided with a similar PDF – Designers have a separate URL landing page, but it is linked to the printers account, they would also be provided with their own login Username and Password.
Here's an example of access details for an external designer, which is linked directly to the printers account:
Provided that the Printer stays within our S.M.A.R.T Centre program, all parties will always have access to our latest installers (simply go to the INSTALLERS tab and access the latest updates)
If the printer decides to opt out of our S.M.A.R.T Centre program, the links to both the Printers account and all their external customer accounts is cancelled, and as such, nobody will have access to the locked area.
Sometimes a designer/agency will take their business elsewhere! If this happens and the printer no longer wants that agency to have access to the locked area, all that printer needs to do is notify us – We then issue the printer with a new login password, which would also be issued to each of their external customers, except the customer who should no longer have access.
Here's an example of a printers access details, which is unique to that printer:
A Printers external customers, agencies, designers etc, who purchase one of the printers "Design Suite & FX-Viewer" vouchers, is then provided with a similar PDF – Designers have a separate URL landing page, but it is linked to the printers account, they would also be provided with their own login Username and Password.
Here's an example of access details for an external designer, which is linked directly to the printers account:
Provided that the Printer stays within our S.M.A.R.T Centre program, all parties will always have access to our latest installers (simply go to the INSTALLERS tab and access the latest updates)
If the printer decides to opt out of our S.M.A.R.T Centre program, the links to both the Printers account and all their external customer accounts is cancelled, and as such, nobody will have access to the locked area.
Sometimes a designer/agency will take their business elsewhere! If this happens and the printer no longer wants that agency to have access to the locked area, all that printer needs to do is notify us – We then issue the printer with a new login password, which would also be issued to each of their external customers, except the customer who should no longer have access.
Are you getting strange RIP issues with things not processing correctly?
It's never fun when you encounter issues ripping files, and understandably when something goes wrong, it's often the new technology that gets the blame…However, most RIP issues are based on the handling of the data that was created at the design stage, and as Color-Logic is a set of palettes that uses existing technology from Adobe, it's usually NOT a Color-Logic issue that's causing the problems!
In the visual below, the RIP has failed to process the wine label correctly in the top right hand corner. This is strange, because the more complex and challenging items have all processed correctly:
The most frequent RIP issues are related to Overprints and Transparency settings, that are using by designers. A way to test your RIP, is to utilize the Color-Logic Print Evaluation Test Forms (was per the visual above) – these test forms are designed to highlight issues within the processing of a file. We created these test files to be complex and really push how a RIP performs, by using various design techniques that designers typically use – interestingly, RIP issues often happen on the more simple looking items, such as the wine label on our test forms (shown above), however, that's often NOT an indicator that it's the wine label on the sheet causing the problems – Some RIPs interpret and handle transparency and overprints differently, and in some instances, you can get strange things happening, where some artefacts on the separations do not process correctly. After numerous and painstaking trials to find the offending element on a page, it's usually the use of Illustrator drop shadows that causes RIP issues!
If you do encounter RIP issues, we would advise is to test using different PDF formats – Usually to get around transparency issues, we would recommend output using PDFX-3 which will flatten transparency, although testing of various PDF formats is recommended before you look any keeping in to your art files.
If the problem continues after testing different PDF settings, then the second testing process is to use "flatten transparency" within Adobe Illustrator to manually flatten all the graphical elements.
In the visual below, the RIP has failed to process the wine label correctly in the top right hand corner. This is strange, because the more complex and challenging items have all processed correctly:
The most frequent RIP issues are related to Overprints and Transparency settings, that are using by designers. A way to test your RIP, is to utilize the Color-Logic Print Evaluation Test Forms (was per the visual above) – these test forms are designed to highlight issues within the processing of a file. We created these test files to be complex and really push how a RIP performs, by using various design techniques that designers typically use – interestingly, RIP issues often happen on the more simple looking items, such as the wine label on our test forms (shown above), however, that's often NOT an indicator that it's the wine label on the sheet causing the problems – Some RIPs interpret and handle transparency and overprints differently, and in some instances, you can get strange things happening, where some artefacts on the separations do not process correctly. After numerous and painstaking trials to find the offending element on a page, it's usually the use of Illustrator drop shadows that causes RIP issues!
If you do encounter RIP issues, we would advise is to test using different PDF formats – Usually to get around transparency issues, we would recommend output using PDFX-3 which will flatten transparency, although testing of various PDF formats is recommended before you look any keeping in to your art files.
If the problem continues after testing different PDF settings, then the second testing process is to use "flatten transparency" within Adobe Illustrator to manually flatten all the graphical elements.