by JimRaffel on June 28, 2007
I have been so immersed in virtual proofing over the last several posts, that I had almost forgotten how much I still love the smell of ink in the morning. Last week I had the privilege of spending two days assisting a customer in the set-up of our software primarily for use as a pressroom monitoring tool.
The experience reminded me of #55: Just Measure It! The customer is a web offset shop and has the same problem that most of our digital printing customers have (Oh, I love the smell of toner in the morning too!). The problem is that their press product is finished product and has no trim. Color bars are not an option on production work, and changing the design to incorporate color swatches would also be impractical at this time.
The solution turned out to be the same solution we employee with our digital printing customers. A test form is put on press twice a day and the results of those measurements are used to verify conformance to density standards across the web. A second control strip can be scanned to gather other print metrics like TVI, Print Contrast, etc.
The results in a sister shop have been improved consistency from day to day and the ability to monitor changes in density and TVI from morning (cold press) to afternoon (warm press). In a perfect world I would love to see color bars on every job, but we thought outside the box and found them a solution that allowed us to measure. Once they started measuring quality and consistency improved. Profitability and productivity are never far behind quality and consistency improvements.
I raise the challenge again…today start measuring something in your color workflow that you are not measuring today. Within seven days those measurements will point the direction you need to go to improve the quality and consistency of that process.
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by JimRaffel on June 20, 2007
While at the IPA Technical Conference earlier this month, I had the opportunity to run through the evaluation of the five virtual proofing systems on display. The combination of the evaluation experience and the release of our ProofPass.com [Virtual] product have solidified my thoughts on virtual proofing at this moment in time.
Virtual proofing will continue to replace hard copy proofing in the perishable weekly printing market. In this very specific market which includes weekly news magazines, Sunday newspaper supplements, and weekly sales mailers virtual proofing will replace hard copy proofing over a relatively short period of time. While the obvious reason (and a good one at that) is cost, I feel the real reason for a rapid move to virtual proofing in this market is time compression of the production cycle. The Sunday supplement market competes almost exclusively on price and the weekly news magazines compete almost exclusively on up to the minute in depth coverage of the week’s big news stories.
In other printing markets such as packaging, specialty products, and high end coffee table work virtual proofing will make significant gains as the intermediate proof. I do not, however, feel that the contract press side proof will become a virtual proof in this market anytime soon. I truly think it will take a full work generation to see virtual proofs replace physical hard copy samples in this market. I pick the full work generation, because we will need individuals in charge who have “grown up†looking a critical color on an LCD monitor.
Another factor to consider in the virtual proofing world is that those $2,000 to $5,000 LCD’s are the new proofing consumable. As you plan your virtual proofing strategy remember to factor in monitor replacement every 12-24 months depending upon the number of hours the monitor is actually turned on each day. Also, watch high end monitor prices drop like rocks just as flat panel televisions have.
So, what did I think of the IPA soft proofing evaluation? While the evaluation was blind I saw two of the systems stand out head and shoulders above the rest of the pack. You need to do your homework before investing in any of these systems. Even with the best two I would not replace hard proofs except for perishable weekly work.
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