DM SCREENING - ECRM Imaging Systems

DM SCREENING

GETTING STARTED GUIDE

AO12333
Rev. 19

AO50785
Revision 3

This guide reflects the software as of September 2012.

Additional copies of this manual may be obtained by writing or calling:
ECRM Order Processing
554 Clark Road
Tewksbury, MA 01876

Phone No. (US) - +1 978-851-0207 — Fax (US) - +1 978-851-7016
Phone No. (UK) - +44 1923-218255 — Fax (UK) +44 1923-218256
Phone No. (Hong Kong) - +852 2-564-8989— Fax (Hong Kong) +852 2-564-8821

Visit our Internet Web Site: www.ecrm.com

Proprietary Notice

The information contained within this guide is the property of ECRM. No transmission,
reproduction, transcription, storage in a retrieval system, translation into any language or
other use is permitted in whole or in part in any form without first obtaining written
permission of ECRM.

ECRM® is a registered trademark of ECRM Incorporated. Other brand or product names are
the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders.

© copyright ECRM Incorporated 2012

ii DM Screening Getting Started AG50785 Rev. 3

Table of Contents

Overview 1

System Requirements 2

Operating system 2
Hardware 2
RIPMate/Harlequin RIP 2
Plate Dot Reader (for Calibration) 2
Spectrophotometer 2

Installing ECRM DM Screening 3

Preliminary Steps 3 6
Installing the ECRM DM Screening Plug-in
Installing the ECRM DM Screens 8

Configuring ECRM DM Screening 10

Custom Screens 17

Calibration 19

Calibrating the Plate 19
Press Calibration 24

Installing the DM Screening License 26

Accessing DM Screen Sets 28

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide iii

iv DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

OVERVIEW

Overview

This manual explains how to install ECRM DM Screening.
The installation is the same for either the trial version or the fully
licensed version.
If you’re installing ECRM DM Screening for the 21-day trial, please
be aware of the following.
• The 21-day trial period cannot be extended.
• Do not install this trial until you are prepared to use it.
The ECRM DM Screening Trial includes specific screens that have
been developed to optimize the output for specific ECRM CTP-Plate
combinations for a typical press.
If your press has dot gain that is either very low or very high, or your
CTP-Plate combination is not available, you may require a custom-
built screen. This requires requesting the appropriate target from
ECRM, printing it on your press, and sending the printed target to
ECRM. ECRM will then examine your output, build the custom
screen and send it to you. We recommend this entire process be
completed before installing the ECRM DM Screening Trial. Please
call if you have any questions.
Remember, once the screening trial is installed, you have only
21days to use it. So, be prepared to complete all evaluations in a
timely manner when you install the trial.

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 1

DM Screening Getting Started Guide

System Requirements

Operating system

PC Windows 2000/2003/2008 / XP / Vista / 7 or later
Mac OS X - 10.4 to 10.7 or later

Hardware

Generating DM screens is CPU intensive. These specifications are
minimum. Faster is better.

PC

• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8 GHz of faster processor
• 4Gb RAM; Two 160Gb disk drives
• DVD Drive

MACINTOSH

• 2.6 GHz Dual Core Intel Xeon processor-based workstation
• 4Gb RAM. minimum; Two 80+ Gb disk drives
• DVD Drive

RIPMate/Harlequin RIP

RIPMate/Harlequin RIP v8.3 or later is required.

Plate Dot Reader (for Calibration )

Plate readers that support an ‘FM’ mode work best at reading ECRM
DM plates. We have had good results with the latest Xrite iCPlate2
reader. ECRM offers this reader as p/n MA0721.

Spectrophotometer

For reading press gain. The Xrite i1 is a good choice. ECRM offers
this item as p/n MA0775.

2 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

INSTALLING ECRM DM SCREENING

Installing ECRM DM Screening

Preliminary Steps

Step 1 On the RIP workstation desktop, create a new folder called DM Screening.

Step 2 If you received a DVD similar
to the one shown at the right,
load the DVD into the
workstation now.

Note: If you are installing the trial
version of DM Screening, you
may have received two .zip files
from ECRM rather than this
CD. If so, skip down to Step 8.

Step 3 Wait for the WorkMates DM
Screening screen shown
below to open. If it doesn’t, Note: DM Screening can also be found
on your ECRM WorkMates/RIP DVD.

open the DVD and launch the setup.exe program to open the window.

Step 4 Click on the Browse CDROM button as shown below.

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 3

DM Screening Getting Started Guide

Step 5 Open the ECRM DM Screening folder on the DVD as shown below.
You’ll see the ECRM DM Screening Install and ECRM DM
Screening Targets folders shown shown below on the right..

Step 6 Copy the ECRM DM Screening Install and ECRM DM Screening
Targets folders to DM Screening folder on your desktop.

Step 7 Close the DVD, skip the next 3 steps, and continue with Step 11.
Step 8 Copy the two .zip files you received from ECRM into the DM

Screening folder on your desktop.
Step 9 Extract the files in the two zip files into the DM Screening folder.
Step 10 Delete the two .zip files.

4 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

INSTALLING ECRM DM SCREENING

Step 11 At this point, the two folders in the DM Screening folder on your
desktop should contain all the files shown below.

INSTALL
FILES

TARGET
FILES

Now that you have all the files needed to install and use DM screening
readily available on your desktop, you are ready to install the DM
Screening plug-in.

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 5

DM Screening Getting Started Guide

Installing the ECRM DM Screening Plug-in

Step 1 Launch the RIPMate/Harlequin RIP.
Step 2 From the RIPMate pull-down menu, select the Print File... option.

Step 3 In the Print File window, look in the
ECRM DM Screening \ ECRM DM Screening Install folder on
your desktop.

Step 4 If your RIP is on a PC, print:
DMS Plugin Installer (Win).ps.
If your RIP is on a Mac (OSX), print:
DMS Plugin Installer (Mac).ps.

PLUG-IN INSTALLERS

6 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

INSTALLING ECRM DM SCREENING

Step 5 A license agreement like the one shown below appears. Read the
agreement and then close the window it appears in.

Step 6 Once the job is complete, you must restart the RIP.

When the RIP is restarted, you will see the following messages in the
RIP’s Monitor window:

Core Screening ECRMDM Plugin
Version 5.n - Copyright (c) 2008-2012 Hamillroad
Software. All Rights Reserved.
! ECRM DM Screening Plugin
*** Demo period will expire on: 2:07 PM, Wednesday
September 7, 2012 ***
Successfully registered module “ECRMDM (Hqn v8.3+)”

This indicates ECRM-DM Screening has successfully been installed
and shows when your trial will expire.

Once the Demo period expires, any jobs that are printed using
ECRM-DM Screening will error.

Now that the DM Screening plug-in is installed, you can install the
screens.

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 7

DM Screening Getting Started Guide

Installing the ECRM DM Screens

Installing the ECRM-DM screens is similar to installing the plug-in.

Step 1 From the RIPMate pull-down menu, select the Print File... option.
Step 2 In the Print File window, look in the desktop

ECRM DM Screening \ ECRM DM Screening Install folder.

Step 3 Select the screen set file that is appropriate for your device. For
example, for a MAKO 400, you would print the DMS Screens
(MakoN00).ps screen set file as shown below.

SCREEN SETS

The table below shows which screen set file to use for specific CTP
devices.

For CTP Device... Use Screen Set File...

ECRM DPX DMS Screens (DPX).ps
ECRM NEWS, ECRM NEWSmatic
ECRM MAKO 200 DMS Screens (NEWS).ps

ECRM MAKO 2/4/8/2x/4x /8x /8x, MAKO 4matic DMS Screens (Mako200).ps and
ECRM MAKO 400/800 DMS Screens (MakoN00).ps
ECRM Nautilus DMS Screens (MakoN).ps
non-ECRM Violet News devices DMS Screens (MakoN00).ps
non-ECRM Violet devices DMS Screens (Nautilus).ps
non-ECRM Themal News devices DMS Screens (Violet News).ps
non-ECRM Thermal devices DMS Screens (Violet).ps

DMS Screens (Thermal News).ps
DMS Screens (Thermal).ps

8 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

INSTALLING ECRM DM SCREENING

Step 4 Click the Print button (see previous illustration).

Step 5 Once the job is complete you must restart the RIP.

When the RIP is restarted, you will see a list of all the screens that
were installed in the RIP’s Monitor window.

Note: Typically, “News” screen sets include low resolution screens (up to 1800
dpi), whereas non-News screens sets include high resolution screens
(1800/2400 dpi and higher).

LIST OF
INSTALLED
DM SCREENS

Note: You can now implement their use by applying them in your page
setups. We explain how to do this is the next section.

Two paths for accessing DM Screens are provided at the back of this
book. See “Accessing DM Screen Sets" on page 28.

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DM Screening Getting Started Guide

Configuring ECRM DM Screening

To use DM Screening, you need a page setup with a separations style
dot shape configured for DM Screening. Here’s how create such a
page setup.
Step 1 From the RIPMate pull-down menu, select the Page Setup
Manager... option.

Step 2 In the Page Setup Manager window, select a page setup to use as a
template for a new page setup that will use DM Screening. We
selected the TIFF 2400 shown below.

Step 3 Click Copy...

• The New Page Setup window opens.

10 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

CONFIGURING ECRM DM SCREENING

Step 4 In the New Page Setup window click the Separations Manager icon.

• The Separations Manager window pops up.

Step 5 In the Separations Manager window, select an existing separations
style to serve as a template for creating a new separations style that
will use DM Screening. We chose CMYK Separations as our
template.

SEPARATIONS MANAGER ICON

Step 6 Click the Copy...
• The New Style for device... window opens.

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 11

DM Screening Getting Started Guide

Step 7 In the New Style for device... window, enter a Style name: for the
new style you are about to create. Your name should include a
reference to DM screening, like our example below.

Step 8 Click the Create button.

• The Edit Style for...window opens (see next figure).

12 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

CONFIGURING ECRM DM SCREENING

Step 9 In the Edit Style for window, pull down the Dot shape: menu and
select the appropriate DM Screen-Plate combination for your new
style.
We chose the MakoN00-SouthernLitho combination shown below
because we run Southern Litho plates on a Mako 200 CTP.

Note: For more about Device-Plate combinations, refer to ECRM DM Screen
Selection Guide AG50719.

Step 10 If you want to generate extra grey levels, click (check) the Generate
extra grey levels box as shown in the figure for the next step. If not,
skip the next step and continue with Step 12.

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 13

DM Screening Getting Started Guide

Step 11 In the Limit number of distinct grey levels to popup, select the value
you want. We chose 2048, as shown below.

Note: Select 256 levels (or less) for 8-bit screening. Select 512 levels (or more)
for full, 16-bit screening)

Step 12 Click OK. This opens the Separations Manager window.

Step 13 In the Separations Manager window, click Select. This applies your
new separation style to the page setup you are working on and closes
the Separations Manager window.

14 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

CONFIGURING ECRM DM SCREENING

Step 14 In the New Page Setup window, note that your new DM Screening
style is now being displayed as Style: for the page setup.
Click on Save As... as shown below.

NEW DM SCREENING STYLE

• The Save Setup window opens.

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 15

DM Screening Getting Started Guide

Step 15 In the Save Setup window, enter a name for the new page setup you
are creating (like our TIFF 2400 -DM, shown below), and then click
Save.

• The Page Setup Manager window opens.

Step 16 In the Page Setup Manager window, you’ll see the name of the new
page setup you just created.
Click OK. This saves your new DM Screening page setup and closes
the Page Setup Manger window.

NEW DM SCREENING PAGE SETUP

You can now use your new page setup to generate output using
ECRM DM Screening.

16 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

CUSTOM SCREENS

Custom Screens

If your CTP-Plate combination is not listed, or if your press has dot
gain at either extreme (high or low), ECRM can build you a custom
screen at a nominal cost. Ordering such a screen requires you to:
Step 1 Print specific target(s) for either a Black (newspaper) or a Black and
Magenta (commercial) plate.
Step 2 Print the targets on your press using your standard ink densities.
You should print on the highest quality paper you normally use.
ECRM will need 4 copies of the press sheets for analysis.
Step 3 Send the printed targets to ECRM.
When you are ready to image and run these plates, call ECRM for
instructions on which targets to use.

EXAMPLE
BLACK TARGET

PLATE

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 17

DM Screening Getting Started Guide

EXAMPLE
MAGENTA TARGET

PLATE

18 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

CALIBRATION

Calibration

Calibrating the Plate

As you would with any screen, you should calibrate your plates with
ECRM DM Screening.

Different DM screens use slightly different dot structures for each of
the CMYK and default inks. You can tell this from the beginning
portion of the screen name, where

• ECRMDM-S (...) means the screen uses the same dot structure for
each of the CMYK separations. Use “Monocrome only” plate
calibration to calibrate an “-S” (Single dot) screen.

• ECRMDM-Q (...) means the screen uses a different dot structure for
each of the four CMYK separations. Use “Process Colors only” or,
alternatively, the special PrintDMSUncalibrated.ps job file to
calibrate a “-Q” (Quadruple dot) screen.

• ECRMDM-D (...) means the screen uses the same dot structure for
each of the CMY separations, and a different dot structure for the K.
Use “Process Colors only” or, alternatively, the special
PrintDMSUncalibrated.ps job file to calibrate a a “-D” (Dual dot)
screen.

COMMERCIAL SCREENS

For Commercial screens, differing dot structures are used for each
separation, so you need to calibrate each separation independently.

Here’s how to do that.

Step 1 In the DM Screening folder on your desktop, if you need to unzip the
ECRM DMII Targets.zip file, do so now extracting the files it contains
into the same folder.

Step 2 Launch the RIPMate/Harlequin RIP.

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 19

DM Screening Getting Started Guide
Step 3 From the RIPMate pull-down menu, select the Print File... option.

Step 4 In the Print File window, look in the DM Screening folder on your
desktop.

Step 5 Select the PrintDMSUncalibratedPlate.ps file as shown below. This
file produces separate Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black calibration
targets on a single plate.

Step 6 For Page Setup:, select a DM Screening page setup like the TIFF
2400 - DM setup we selected above.

20 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

CALIBRATION

Step 7 Click the Print button. A TIFF file is created and sent to CtServer for
output by the platesetter, which then images a plate like this.

CYAN
TARGET

PLATE MAGENTA
TARGET

YELLOW
TARGET

BLACK
TARGET

Step 8 Process the plate. Then, measure and record the values for each target
(C, M, Y, K) on the plate.

Note: Plate readers that support an ‘FM’ mode work best at reading ECRM DM
plates. We have had good results with the latest Xrite iCPlate2 reader.

Step 9 From the RIP’s Output pull-
down menu, select the
Calibration Manager as
shown at the right.

• The Calibration (Dot Gain) manager window shown below opens.
Step 10 In the Device: pull-down, select your output device. (Ours was ECRM

Tiff to Folder.)

Step 11 In the Color Space: pull-down, select the appropriate selection. (Ours
was CMYK.)

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 21

DM Screening Getting Started Guide
Step 12 Click New....

• An Edit uncalibrated target... window like the one shown next
opens.

Step 13 Check the Resolution box. Then, from the pull-downs, select the
resolution values that were used to print the test target.

Step 14 Check the Dot shape: box and select the DM Screening dot shape
used to print the test target from the pull-down menus to the right.

22 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

CALIBRATION

Step 15 In the Name: window, enter a name for the new calibration set you are
creating.

Step 13
Step 14

Step 15

Step 16

Step 17

Step 16 Enter the target values recorded on the plate into corresponding
Calibration Curve(s) blocks in the Calibration Manager. Do this for all
four CMYK channels. (In cases where there is not perfect
correspondence, enter the 1/2-way value for two plate targets like 94
and 96 as the value for curve block 95.)

Step 17 Click the OK button. This saves the calibration set you just created
under the name you entered in Step 15 and closes the window.

Next, you will apply the new calibration set you just created to a page
setup.

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 23

DM Screening Getting Started Guide

Step 18 From the RIPMate main menu, select RIPMate > Page Setup
Manager.

Step 19 In the Page Setup Manager window, select the page setup you want
to use the new calibration set.

Step 20 Click OK.
• The Edit Page Setup: window opens.

Step 21 From the Calibration: pull-down list, select the desired calibration set.
Step 22 Click the OK button. This configures the page setup for the selected

calibration and closes the Edit Page Setup: window.
The page setup you just saved will now uses the calibration set you
just applied.

NEWSPAPER SCREENS

When using Newspaper screens, the same dot structures are used for
all separations. Therefore, only the K plate needs to be calibrated.
Follow the steps described above for commercial plates, but enter the
K values for all four curves.
Plate readers which support an ‘FM’ mode work best at reading
ECRM DM plates. We have had good results with the latest Xrite
iCPlate2 reader.

Press Calibration

Any unique screening will produce different results on Press. The
paper you are printing on (coated or uncoated) will also affect your
press calibration. So, as with any screen, press calibration will be
required for the best results.

24 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

CALIBRATION

CALIBRATION OPTIONS

You can use any of the following procedures to calibrate your press.
Choose the one you like.

• Use the standard “Printing Press” capabilities of the Harlequin RIP
to print a press chart, measure it and create an “Intended Press”
(with conventional screening) and an “Actual Press” (with
ECRMDM screening) which can then both be selected in your Page
Setup.

• Use the standard “Printing Press” capabilities of the Harlequin RIP
to print a press chart, measure it and create an “Actual Press”
(ECRMDM screening) which can then be selected in your Page
Setup, along with selecting one of the standard Printing Press
curves such as “(BVD-FOGRA positive gloss)” or “Commercial
A”, etc…

• Use the methodology as per ISO or G7 to fingerprint / profile your
press and create the required curves.

• If you have a spectrophotometer and know how to do this, then by
all means do it yourself. Otherwise, you should ask either your
service engineer, plate supplier or a consultant to do it.

PRESS CALIBRATION FOR DIFFERENT STOCK /

DENSITIES

Calibrating the press as described above means printing a test chart
with certain densities (e.g. CMYK -> 1.4, 1.45, 1.1 and 1.8) and then
measuring the results. When using uncoated stock, it is quite common
to slightly reduce the solid ink densities, which reduces the amount of
gain and so produces different results. In this case, the press needs to
be calibrated separately for the two different sets of densities that are
used for the coated and uncoated stock.

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 25

DM Screening Getting Started Guide

Installing the DM Screening License

If you purchase DM Screening, SECURITY NUMBER
the DVD you received from
ECRM will include a license file
that will allow you to run DM
Screening on your system. This
license file is expressly made for
your RIP and has a file name that
includes the security number
printed on your ECRM dongle
(see figure at right).

The procedure for installing the license follows.

Note: The procedure involves selecting a page setup that uses DM screening. If you do
not have one, create one now as explained in “Configuring ECRM DM Screen-
ing" on page 10.

Step 1 Copy the license file that is on the DVD into the DM Screening folder
on the desktop.

Step 2 Launch RIPMate.

Step 3 From the RIPMate pull-down menu, select the Print File... option.

Step 4 In the Print File window, look in the DM Screening folder, select the
ECRMDM Activation (nnnnn-nn).ps file as shown below.

SECURITY NUMBER PORTION OF FILENAME

26 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3

INSTALLING THE DM SCREENING LICENSE

Step 5 From the Page Setup: pull down at the bottom of the screen, select
any DM screening page setup (we picked the TIFF 2400-DM shown
below).

Step 6 Click Print. This installs your license and closes the Print File
window.

You are now ready to use your licensed version of DM Screening.

AG50785 Rev. 3 DM Screening Getting Started Guide 27

DM Screening Getting Started Guide

Accessing DM Screen Sets

Here are two paths for accessing DM Screens.

Path 1 - Via the Separations Manager

RIPMate menu bar
click Color
click Separations Manager
select a Style Name
click Edit
from the Dot Shape pull-down
select a DM Screen set

Path 2 - Via the Page Setup Manager

RIPMate menu bar
click RIPMate
click Page Setup Manager
Select a Page Setup
click Edit
from the Page Setup window’s
Style: pull-down
select a DM Screen set

28 DM Screening Getting Started Guide AG50785 Rev. 3