How To:
Setting the media ink restrictions using the Basic Ink Restrictions options is very simple. Click > Print Swatch and review the output. On Grand Format and Superwide, UV, and Solvent printers it is recommended that the swatch be enlarged to printed the full width of the printer, or that enough copies are printed to allow the printer to come up to full production speed and temperature, etc.
Evaluate the swatch by eye and choose the patch for each color where any bleeding occurs. If no single color causes bleeding, select the highest percentage patch where there is no color difference. You can also click > Measurement tool to use a color device to determine the density or chroma for the channel. Click on the patch to accept the desired values, then click > Next.
Things to think about:
Setting the ink restriction is intended to make sure that you don't get so much ink in a 1 or 2 color pixel that bleeding or other undesirable artifacting occurs. Make sure that when you set ink restrictions that you consider "Real World" dry time, heater or other printer settings that affect how much ink is used. The ink restriction is a way to make sure that we never put more ink on the media. In the later Ink Limits step you can control 2,3, and 4 color combination if needed. In order to get the most color gamut for each media, it is vital to apply as much ink for 1 or 2 color pixels as the media will accept.
When using the Basic Ink Restriction method any light ink levels are automatically set to 80% of the value of the dark ink restriction value.
The Basic and Advanced Tabs are linked, so you can start with the Basic settings and switch between the tabs as you become more experienced to verify your setting. The Advanced tab allows you to access more complex test files and options.
