HP Z3100 HP Designjet Z3100 Printing Guide [HP Raster Driver] - Proof a press

HP LF Printing Knowledge Center

Proof a press with Pantone colors

Printer:

HP Designjet Z2100/Z3100 series

Software

: HP raster driver

The goal of a press proof is to accurately reproduce the output that it is going to come out of the

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 also 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.