What is a variant?

As PrintFactory is a 3rd Party RIP taking all manor of artwork file formats for different industries, flexibility in the way print images are processed is key. This is where Variants come in. 

With a PMM created, Variants will specify exactly how colour is gamut mapped and converted plus how black and neutral breakdowns should be generated (as well as a few other useful features). All of this can be done on the fly and you don't have to go through any lengthy new linearisation or reprofiling, Calibrator will recalculate for you. Here you can set lighting viewing condition, rendering intent, black generation (GCR, MaxK etc) as well as mix special blacks and cut special inks at certain % (to reduce dither). As changes and variants can be made on the fly, control on the accuracy of colour output can fine tuned via a device link profile. 

For an AVA workflow, we will create an Absolute Rendering / D65 Variant in the next steps. Another example of a Variant set up and use is perhaps a bureau printing large scale images, where the perceptual option in a Variant would keep all images looking balanced and smooth, even if out of gamut. 

Accessing the Variants

1.  Open the Calibrator App
2. Filter your printer in the pop up 
3. Select the relevant media 
4. Find the relevant mode and click its reveal arrow to show content 
5. Find and highlight the Variant option and click it's reveal arrow to display the available Variants 
   

Creating a new Variant

There are two ways to add a New Variant, from scratch or duplicate existing. 

Adding a New Variant

1. Select the Variant Group Header 
2. Click the tiny + at the bottom left of the window
    
3. The Variant options window will appear. Here you can: 

   -Name it 
   -Set the rendering intent 
   -Define how the greyscale and black point will be produced. 
   -Define profile size, quality, colour mapping and viewing condition 
   -Define a cut off point for gamut expanding inks such as oranges, blues etc 
   -Purify primary colours such as CMYKRGB to only use pure inks 
   -Turn EcoSave and potentially save ink 
   

4. Click 'OK' to save the Variant into Calibrator. A recalculation process message will appear for a few seconds before it adds. 
   

Duplicating an existing Variant

This can be useful if you wish to experiment with, for example, different black generations, perhaps for reducing light colour dither. All settings and options are duplicated allowing you to adjust only the parts you require to experiment with, plus of course renaming it. 

1. Select and highlight the Variant you wish to duplicate 
2. Click the tiny duplicate button at the bottom left of the window 
   
3. The Variant options window will appear. Adjust the sections you require, rename and click 'OK'. 
   
4. A recalculation process message will appear for a few seconds before it adds. 
   

Rendering Intent

The Intent field lists standard rendering intents as well as some special intents and behaviours. 

• EcoSave: EcoSave used the same color conversion as Visual Match but with a more aggressive K generation.  It will ignore most of the K generation settings and will try to replace as much K as possible.Image below will generate an ink saving of 42% in comparison to MX ink save option of 24% ink save. 
• Absolute Colorimetric: Used in proofing.  There is no white point generation and it will observe absolute colorimetric mapping over the whole gamut and delivers the best match. 
• Saturation: Saturation does a perceptual mapping on the inside and the out of gamut colors will be closedn based on the retention of the colors.  It will sacrifice Lightness of color in favour of saturation. Best use is in textile 
• Keep Separation: This is not an intent as such, but is used as a recalibration tool in e.g. ceramics industry to move from one production line to another, while retaining the K as is and only changing CMY to match. An extra profile is made that leaves the separations and K generation untouched and recalibrates CMY.  Other industrial applications whose production process would benefit from Keep Separation are decor paper, glass…

Black Generation

Black generation allows the user to decide how Cyan, Magenta and Yellow inks will interact with the greyscale and at what point black ink should be brought / dropped out. A special black mix can also be input here using the current CMYK mix of black calculated by the Max black slider. 

Adjusting the Curve and CMY Mix with Black

This option can help with situations where, for example, black dither on prints is required to be controlled. Standard set ups such as Max K (full use of Black ink for greyscale) and GCR (CMY replacing black ink for mid to light colour mixes) can be found with slider controls for black start and cut off points. The CMYK curves in the visual will update to reflect any changes. 

In the following example GCR, black ink will be used with a soft curve (reducing harshness through the greyscale) with drop out at around 30% tone, leaving CMY to create colours above that level. The CMY is also blended into the black breakdown by use of soft curves. 

Custom Black Point 

Ticking the 'Custom black point' will allow override of how the solid black in the profile is created. This is good for situations where we are trying to perhaps get a deeper or more neutral black/grey in our prints. 'Optimise' will be ticked as default and should be left on as Calibrator will then update surrounding values accordingly should a specific ink be adjusted or added. In the example below, I added 40% purple in the black mix. CMYK ink values are automatically adjusted based on total ink specified in the PMM. The visual is also updated to show the curve of the additional ink. 

Options

The profile and colour options provide control on the following: 

• Profile size 
• Optional further smoothing of the measurements 
• Chromatic and Saturation biases 
• Colour mapping type 
• Mutlicolor start 
• Lighting / Viewing Condition 
• Brightener Compensation 

As our methodology is to work to an accurate print workflow, this section should remain untouched and centralised at 0. 

Multicolor Start 

The allows you to set a % start point of where gamut expanding inks such as orange, burgundy, green, red are to be used. This can be especially usefully if, for example, the customer is printing to a large production digital printer (such as Zimmer) and the gamut expanding inks are creating dither in mid to light colours. 

Brightener Compensation 

This should only be activated if the  spectro has no UV filtering aspect to it and the media has optical brightener content. Using this function on top of measurements that have already been through a UV filtering process can result in unexpected and often undesirable results. 

Recommended Variant set up

• We will, unless otherwise instructed, be working on Absolute Rendering and either D65 or D50. Profile size will always be large and mapping as 'Preserve Destination'. Name your Variant appropriately. 
• Black generation can be whatever is required for quality of print. 
• Brightener Compensation can be off providing your spectro is cancelling UV in the measrements. 
• Purify, EcoSave, Multicolour Start can all be off unless required.