Redownload reinstall

Great fear of piracy, weaponized against the actual customers.

I wasn't planning on this. I was supposed to be a 10 min job adding ram. I didn't know it would blow out into killing off and actually deleting my software, emails, passwords... Unbootable is unbootable... you would think after 30 year Microsoft would have managed a repair utility that worked. I think it has something to do with the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). I doubt if Windows can get inside that to fix anything. If it could that would potentially be a security risk.

I've downloaded 10 years of Paypal as CVS, found the Corel transaction, given it to them raw with the "", explained that it was an issue at the time as I was updating the post beta. Which didn't matter as I'd owned the copy before. Said it is urgent and screwing me over on a job, which it is. Told them to talk directly to Gérard Métrailler.

That was 10 hours ago. I'd say 24 hours was long enough for them to sort it out. That's about how long it will take me to get everything reloaded that I need for the job.

I'm very intolerant of people who say "that can't possibly be done". But I will try to just let this proceed without contacting support again. And I'll feedback what happens.

You are correct, you should be able to download the software at call. Things happen! Computers are stolen, HD go US, you buy a new computer... and you can do that. But if you have paid for something and you are not on Corel's DB then it isn't really your problem is it!

It "feels like" call centre bullshit from the telco. I had a classic this week. A customer with 4 emails that are jamming his email feed that I can't delete no matter what I do. I've had to wait 2 months while they developed the covid safe call centre.

Yani "Well if you can't do this by accessing his account and deleting the emails on the server then delete the whole account and recreate it."

Tech Support "Creating an email account is a sales job and it will take 2 days."

2 days for 1 minute of effort! Support can't even create an email account for an existing customer?

This is some bullshit attitude I've never been allowed. I'll bet ya most of us have done all nighters to meet a deadline, worked weekends without overtime, done our share of author's corrections and dared not complain. I thought that was called the "real world". Maybe I just got it all *** about face again. In the "real world" it takes 2 days to set up an email. Which is about the same amount of effort as to fix my license on the server.

Thankfully for my own work case most of our large format print output happens under our roof, making quality control a little easier. Some work still has to be jobbed out. We don't have the space for a pair of grand format printers to run off billboard faces.

At any rate, some large format RIPs do a better job with reliably printing CMYK, doing RGB to CMYK conversion and simulating Pantone spot colors than other large format RIPs. Onyx is very good at printing to our HP Latex printers. We have headaches from time to time with RasterLink Pro in conjunction with our Mimaki flatbed printer.

The applications and their color profiles are obviously a big variable. Sometimes a EPS or PDF generated from CorelDRAW will work fine. In other cases I end up having to round-trip the art through Adobe Illustrator and generate the EPS or PDF files there. Anything heavy with gradients and transparency effects will usually get proofed and edited in Adobe Illustrator before getting ingested by the RIP.

Ink jet work by me in CorelDRAW is always done as wide gamut, I use spot color, RGB, grayscale and CMYK in the same file.

Unlike Illustrator that only works in RGB or CMYK Draw works in all four color models simultaneously.  Fountain fills, transparency and complex fills required a choice by Corel for display as only one model can be used they chose RGB. This is why for accurate creation of CMYK effects soft proofing needs to be activated to your CMYK profile.

Conversions depend on the quality of the rip conversion process and the operator who set it up and created the media profiles. Ink jet device media profiles are color reactive to the resolution setting for output as well as the input resolution of raster data sent to the rip. Quality repeatable color requires critical attention to the profile honoring processes of the rip then creating files that are compatible.  Most Adobe and Corel users are sRGB users who lack the ability to utilize higher quality processes. 

I use PDF only for all output, inkjet devices, rasterlynk, onyx are the main rips for these devices, we also have a versaworks 4 that does a nice job. I haven't had any issues with complex fills or transparency in output for these devices.

Quality high end CMYK press output has become an art form today. So few printers even understand their own processes I usually contact their support person from their rip manufacturer to understand their process. Every printer I use as a vendor uses samples of my work to show perspective clients. It's a shame, printing used to be such a quality profession.

Late binding... you are going to apply a profile somewhere in the chain. If the images are CMYK then they have been through a profile on the way from RGB > CMYK.

CMYK has a low gamut, a lot is missing and that can never be returned by apply a profile a second time. 

Even the best CMYK profile is still CMYK.

The best results from the Windows driver to an Epson (and I say other printers) is no profile at all. Let the driver sort that out unless you deliberately want to get a flat print that is an attempt to simulate the press.

If you have to do a simulation then do it profile in Draw. Never apply a profile in the driver. IMO not any profile! A profile in the printer driver means the profile understand ink, printer and paper. Even when I've generated profiles with the eyeone they have been crap. Do a test print and use the color controls in the driver as required.

ALL devices apply a media profile at output. Early binding, (converting in the design to a designated color space before output) late binding, (converting to the destination space in the output device) .

Early binding is best for press work, late binding I find can be better for many on digital devices specifically ink jet units because the final media profiles are device proprietary and not usable in applications.

Color critical work is not possible with driver based non postscript devices. Ok is the best you'll get. Driver based postscript devices can have better color management but it still lacks far behind digital frontend processing.

For output to non-postscript device all file content after you hit print is rasterized to RGB. Non color managed non postscript processes all assume sRGB. Some devices allow the uses of specific source and destination profiles but they all suffer from the rasterization to an RGB space at the beginning.  The sRGB choice is limiting as many CMYK colors exist outside the sRGB color space.

Driver based postscript devices do not suffer from the rasterization to RGB process at the beginning, they can rasterized to the native color space, some simply straight to CMYK, however they lack the sophistication in their color conversion processes of a RIP based digital front end.

THE PROPER WAY for presses.

ALL (no matter where in the world you are) RIP based plate or film setters use an ink limit, linearization, dot gain curve that is applied to the final data that is imaged to the plate or film. This is not an ICC color profile but it does have a (TIC) total ink coverage limit which is key for the designer. It is used to linearize the press output and compress the input data to the ink limit of the press. So the reality is that there is always a final conversion but the process if handled properly is a minimal to zero compression.

The RIP processing software has a base set of, RGB, grayscale and CMYK ICC profiles used as source and destination profiles for non-tagged data to provide conversions of non CMYK data before being sent to the plate or film setter. This software also has specific look up tables to convert spot colors to CMYK.

HERE'S THE KEY PROCESS! Why early binding is better for presses

All CMYK data tagged with an ICC profile or untagged is handled as UNTAGGED, simply passing the CMYK color numbers along to the final data curve un altered.

HERE'S the key for quality for the designer. 

As long as you use a CMYK profile that is equal to or less than the TIC of the press you CAN USE any CMYK profile you like, because the process simply passes CMYK number to the setter. 

WHY do we want to do this? Use Photo-PAINT or some other image editor capable of displaying document color manages images set the application to use the embedded profile

Demonstrate this to yourself. Pick a complicated RGB image, save as before each conversion and convert the same RGB image to US SWOP coated, ISO V2, GRACO 2006 and any other profile you want to test.

Now open each allowing Photo-PAINT to view each image in it's  color space and view them simultaneously and you'll see the differences. Those differences are because of the profile TIC BUT MAINLY because of how the profile handles gray balance.

That gray balance is passed along through to the plate or film setter, so YOU CONTROL the look of your CMYK images. Late binding takes that control away from you.

Now to the PEAK of RIP based CMYK quality.

I've been doing this since before the beginning of the digital technology.  In my experience 98% of CMYK images require color editing after conversion. What that means is that those using late binding 98% of the time could have done better.

How much better is the question, in my opinion 10% to 20% better for the average complex image. As images become more complex and the quality of the paper and print process goes up that percentage changes to 100%.

What is a complex image and what is a quality output process?

A quality output process is a coated paper #100 LB text US, 400 line AM screening or FM screened. A complex image may start as an RGB image from a carnival with prophoto gamut. However most likely a prophoto gamut image with multiple dark transitions in browns, greens, blues and grays. Extremely difficult to reproduce with a high degree of color definition. 100% of all these types of images will need manual conversion. You'll see these in high end country club brochures, architectural brochures and financial institutional work.

The way you discuss the process hasn't been done for 15 years in the U.S, it's too inefficient and too expensive. I know of zero hexachrome houses in the Eastern U.S.., oh they talk but when you demand performance forget it. The end result for the color is awful.

Accurate  proofs and the Dodo bird went the same way. There hasn't been an accurate proof since the Kodak Approval, the digital proofs are barely ok, ROOM technology is just too expensive for most shops so they go for a SWOP or GRACoL certification, which is like a hooker saying she loves you.

I read about this BS in print publications and have approached some of the printers in the articles but they really can't do the work. It's as bad a metallic ink jets, I read about them tried to get a couple jobs done. NON PERFORMER big time! White print is working fine but I tried metallic last year a total waste of money.

I get files to work on that get sent to Germany, France, Japan, South or Central America or any number of places to print. I'll maybe actually get to see the results on page 2 to 5 months later. The client expects it to be great without additional costs. No special ink sets, CMYK converted for the correct destination. And their corporate identity done right.

I do images for 5 architectural publication printed globally some are done of a #50lb #1 coated sheet and some just moved to a #45lb #3 coated sheet. Junk crap paper but the client still expects their work to stand out against the competition. It's  a PITA but easy to be better because of most of the images from competitors are late bound so the automatic conversions are poor.

Local work I can go on press with, but I never get more than 1 ink jet proof. About 50% of the work is 6/6  that's CMYK, a spot flat and a spot gloss varnish 2 sides on a coated luster #100 ld text or #65 coated luster cover.

Some time the corporate identities require spot colors, so be it. They were dumb enough to let their designers use spot colors they cam pay the extra 50 sawbucks.

I used to do 8+ color jobs, 2 spot color with multiple varnishes. If that added $1000 to a $5000 print job that had $3,000 of photography and $10,000 of consulting, copywriting, art, design and management, it was good value. Not ordinary spot colors but metallic or fluro.

That's why people came to us, because we did work that was different. The goal was to present something that wasn't crap.

We would add different stocks to print runs just to get a feel of what was possible. 10 sheets of this and that.

I gather that "times have changed". I call it boring!

Tell me about it! Today finding clients who appreciate quality print is like finding teeth on a chicken. I'm lucky to serve an industry that markets large cost projects to discerning clients and that helps but you have to diversify.  15 profitable print jobs on top of 20,000 jobs of no margin crap doesn't pay the bills.

So I dumped all the low end crap and mixed it up with lower volumes of high end work. 15 real profitable print jobs + 6 real nice donor walls + 12 commercial signs + 20 very profitable image editing sessions = making a living.

In the States near zero pros are buying CorelDRAW so I have no CorelDRAW support clients any longer, I support output from many sources.

The evolution of design has split into conceptual design using 3D programs and functional design. CorelDRAW fits well into straddling those needs but for the very large part people have no idea. 

This is the fault of Corel, the management has developed and executed a master plan at destroying any good will that existed in the graphics industry for Draw and poisoning the minds of IT staff and designers toward their product. I'd have an easier job of selling sand in the Sahara Desert then selling CorelDRAW in the professional graphics world of the United States.

Can I make money with CorelDRAW? You bet!

It's a lot of things...

I took this photo on my iPhone

Just use a stock photo

I've got a copy of Adobe we do it in house

Give it to the printer to do

My son makes web pages

All the many levels of expertise have been removed and it's flattened to "do it in house".

A printer that I shared a building with is doing web pages. OMG are they ***! Why do that? They have 3, 6 color presses and an indigo. The job is to feed the press not bugger about doing other things badly.

The printer now does web pages, banners, signs, digital print and traditional print. All of it poorly.

I have vendors that require me to show them how to use their equipment. 

It's why I diversified and moved to projects. If I get to consult on the design, I dou the file repair,  the architectural signs, the banners, the promotional boards, interior signs and the brochures then I can make money.

To do that you have to know you stuff but it's very profitable.