Archive for the 'conferences' Category

#70: Ink Jet Print for Pay vs. Proofing

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Jim Raffel
on September 25, 2008
in color, conferences and wide format
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Not too long ago I attended the IRgA annual conference and continued to see a growing trend I first saw at an ISA show several years ago in Las Vegas.  Ink jet printers that many in the traditional graphic arts (commercial and publication printing) have viewed as proofing devices are competing increasingly for commercial print dollars.  IRgA is the organization that used to, almost exclusively, represent blueprint printers.  While many of these companies still produce blueprints and architectural drawings, they are also now heavily involved in the sign and point of purchase market.

As I walked the show floor at the conference, a high percentage of the booths contained large format printers that are used in traditional graphic arts.  Just as many innovative small and mid-size commercial printers have discovered that these devices purchased for proofing can be used for signage printing, so has the IRgA.  Why not bid on the signs for the architects grand unveiling of the new skyscraper?  Why not bid on the signs for the construction site?  For that matter, why not bid on the signage for the new building?  It is, after all, almost always easier to acquire additional business from an existing customer than it is to land a new customer.

Several other factors are driving this growth in wide format ink jet printing.
-    Faster printer speeds
-    Ink technology improvements
-    Expanding media choices
-    Expanding post print options (vacuum forming, etc)

As the ink jet industry matures and blurs the lines between sign shops, blueprint printers, and commercial printers, print buyers are becoming increasingly more comfortable with the print quality attainable via ink jet, not to mention some of the cost and turnaround time benefits.  Finally, as more consumer product companies begin to rely upon wide format ink jet printing as part of the marketing mix, color quality becomes increasingly important.

I know this to be a fact because; large format ink jet print shops are a rapidly grown market segment of ProofPass.com user base.  Some of these wide format digital printers have become multi-plant national concerns.  As such, they work with critical color customers who expect color to be maintained with 3-4 delta E tolerance.  These multi-plant shops also want the ability to shift work between locations, which requires that they know devices in different locations produce color in the same way.  This verification process is simple with a tool like ProofPass.com that centralizes color measurement results in a single web-browser accessible internet database.

Overall, the growth of effective color management and methodologies like G7 has further blurred the lines of competition in the graphic arts industry.  Standardized color is now a barrier to entry.  If you are not capable of consistently producing “Coke” red, trust me someone else is and will take any business you have from that customer away from you.

EXTREME Color Management Conference Update

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Jim Raffel
on September 17, 2008
in GRACoL, L*a*b*, blogging, color and conferences
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It has really been too busy to write something each day.  I do have some topics rolling around in my head and will write more when I get back to the office.  So far it has been a good conference with many excellent speakers.

During lunches and other networking opportunities I did pick up a bit of frustration on the part of Ink Vendors and users of G7 related to repeatability of ink trap from press run to press run.  Achieving the ISO spec for the individual Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black is no problem but getting repeatable trapping (measured with L*a*b* of course) is often times very difficult.

The panel I was part of focused on press room process control.  I bring this up because part of the answer to the ink trapping problem is better utilization of process control techniques by printers.  I presented two case studies of printers who have successfully utilized our ProofPass.com product to see significant improvements in press room quality and consistency.

I will focus on these two topics and more when I have more time to write.

EXTREME Color Management Conference

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Jim Raffel
on September 14, 2008
in blogging, color and conferences
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New Orleans, LA - As part of ColorMetrix’ sponsorship of the EXTREME Color Management Conference I will be in New Orleans the rest of this week (9/14-9/18). The week is actually comprised of 3 conferences; starting with a G7 Summit all day Monday; then a day and half of EXTREME the second day of which overlaps with the first day of IDEAlliance Spectrum360.

This promises to be a very exciting week. We all started arriving last nigh and the gang is here (well the Color Management gang so far).  It was decided that what happens on Boubon Street stays on Bourbon Street!  So, no stories from last night.

 My goal is to kick start my JimRaffel.com activity with daily posts from the conferences this week. There I go setting myself up for success by putting my goals out there where all of you can read it. Tomorrow look for my thoughts (OK, my sometimes strong opions) about the G7 Sumitt.  Because I need to get a tabletop display set-up and man that table during breaks I will not actually be attending the sessions, but I am sure the comments made during breaks and meals will be quite interesting.

Thanks to the New Orleans Marriott staff.These folks have only been home about a week since the Hurricane evacuation.  They have done a fantastic job getting the hotel back up and running and making us all feel welcome.

#69 IDEAlliance Proofing Summit in Review

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Jim Raffel
on March 18, 2008
in GRACoL, ISO, blogging, calibration, color, conferences, delta E and guidelines
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Recently I attended the IDEAlliance Proofing Summit held in conjunction with the Publishing Business Conference and Expo at the Marriott Marquis in New York City. During the one day summit I managed to take three pages of notes focused on the meeting’s key topic of Virtual Proofing to the Numbers.

During the initial industry panel a question was raised about how to deal with virtual proofing systems from multiple vendors. Large publishers obviously deal with many printing companies and those companies make use of many of the different virtual proofing systems now available on the market. While it did not seem appropriate to make a comment during the meeting, I will remind my readers that ProofPass.com allows verification of ANY virtual proofing system with centralization of the results on a ProofPass.com internet server.

Bill Pope (of FTA) then spoke about the 2008 Virtual Proofing Systems Certification Program. Bill made a great point that sound color management is the key to successful virtual proofing. While ISO specs inks that most printers are now using, good color management is required to simulate those colorants on a monitor. Bill also made a great point about dealing with proofing disappointment up front. While I loved the comment, I think we all know that customers want what they expect x not necessarily what they see….

A fairly technical overview of the certification program was then provided. I found two items of particular interest during this portion; 1. A shift is being made to utilization of Delta E2000 for virtual proofing verification (already supported in ProofPass.com); 2. One of Bill’s key steps to verify that nothing has been “fudged” by the vendor is almost identical to the ProofPass.com verification procedure.

Some other comments I picked up throughout the day:

  • Pressroom monitors will need to be replaced approximately every 18 months.
  • Office/prepress monitors should last about three years
  • About 90% of the Pantone spot colors can be achieved with a high degree of accuracy on monitors costing about $5,000.
  • Grey balance uniformity corner to corner on a monitor is key
  • Color clipping on monitors might be overstated – it is localized to fully saturated colors and just results in a slightly duller rendition of the color.

All in all, it was a day well spent with the publishing and agency side of our business.

65-2: New Media vs. Old Media at a Trade Show

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Jim Raffel
on October 30, 2007
in blogging, color, conferences, measurement, proofing and wide format
. 1 Comment

As a member of the new media I would like to thank the SGIA show management for their recognition of the shift that is occurring in the way people gather news and information. While JimRaffel.com is not listed among the 22 most popular blogs in the world we do a pretty good job reaching those interested in color measurement and process control. After a review of the site, SGIA show management was enlightened enough to grant me press credentials for the show.

What do new media writers have to offer a show like SGIA? When I planned my trip to SGIA I had two meetings planned as Jim Raffel, the CEO of ColorMetrix. Thus, I decided to make good use of my “spare” time at the show learning more about the specialty graphic market and sharing that knowledge with you, my readers. I think the key item that differentiates me from a traditional media writer is that I have no deadlines and no publisher demanding that I put out a specific number of words or posts each day, week, month, etc. I write only when there is sufficient copy to write about something, and by and large only as it relates to color measurement and color process control.

I do not visit the press room and pick up press releases. I observed most of the traditional media representatives picking up press releases at the press room. Then, they all make the rounds of the booths with the most compelling releases and speak with the marketing people there for the benefit of the company with the press release. I am not saying this is a bad thing, well maybe I am… We have a journalism graduate speaking to a marketing graduate, neither of which has probably ever worked an image in Photoshop, made a plate, run a press, etc… It is, however, a great way for those companies’ issuing press releases to get the information out.

Take a look at my previous post. Do you think the average trade magazine author in our industry could explain to you why Canon’s move back to an 8 color printer is significant? Would they understand that none of the RIP manufacturers could figure out how to properly render the RGB inks in the Canon’s 12 color printer? In this industry we just seem to do better with 8 color CMYK printers to render images. As a result it is difficult to hit a lot of the spot colors, but if the spot color looks great and the photograph of the kids eating the chips next to it looks awful, that is a problem.

If you do not believe me take a look at the redesigned Graphic Arts Monthly website and notice how prominent the blogs are. WhatTheyThink.com is another a good example of a new media site even if one does have to pay for the content that really matters. WhatTheyThink.com provided very significant coverage of GraphExpo (A printing industry trade show) all in digital form.

As for SGIA show coverage I had planned on more, but the Jim Raffel CEO guy got busy with many unplanned meetings. Many of my contacts from the more traditional side of graphic arts turned out at the SGIA show and are expressing a greater interest in bringing color measurement and color process control to the Specialty Graphic market.

65-1: SGIA Live Wednesday Observations

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Jim Raffel
on October 25, 2007
in blogging, calibration and conferences
. 1 Comment

photo_102407_001.jpg

First, some general observations about the show.  While screen printing is still a very large part of the SGIA show, you do have to look a bit harder in between all the digital printing booths from the likes of Canon, Epson, HP and more to find screen printing products.  I am a new comer to the SGIA party, but had a general feeling that the show floor traffic was good.  Also, as with GraphExpo last month the quality of attendees seems high (the decision makers are here).

Use of color measurement technology is growing in the specialty graphic market.  I ran into Paul Foster of RIPware Limited displaying the ScreenReader which can be used for measuring the screen printing stencil.  For now it appears to be the only device in the world that can do so.  This device will make the linearization process for direct to screen machines much easier.  Also, when measuring a 50% patch on finished work it is nice to know that patch started as a 50% patch on the screen.

At the Nazdar Consulting Services booth I was introduced to their new CATZper (Color Approval and Tolerance by Perception) program.  The CATZper program allows for the physical output of visual reference and tolerance guides.  This could be a single spot color or an actual critical image.  The user is able to define the +/- color deviation allowed and that deviation can be different for each L*a*b* axis and direction.  Cool Stuff!

Both Epson and Canon have new printers on display.  At Epson the 11880 (Epson’s first 64 inch machine) is being shown as well as samples of their new back lit media product.  Using the 11880 a 64 inch wide backlit display can be printed and is ready to go.  At Canon the new 8 iPF8000S color printer announced and introduced at GraphExpo appears to be marking Canon’s return to the color proofing market.  Some folks I talked to at the show feel that technology changes to the printer make it a good potential choice for color proofing.

#65: Color in the Specialty Graphic Market & SGIA Live

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Jim Raffel
on October 19, 2007
in blogging, color, conferences and wide format
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I will be attending the SGIA (Specialty Graphic Imaging Association) conference and expo in Orlando next week. As I reviewed the conference sessions and expo web-site it became clear this would be a great opportunity to get back to writing for JimRaffel.com. Since GraphExpo I have been busy with show follow-up and have not had the time to write a Golden Nugget. So, next week keep an eye on JimRaffel.com for daily posts, and at the end of the week I will email an overall digest format of the week’s posts like I did after GraphExpo.

Color is becoming an increasingly important factor in a market that by and large (there are always exceptions) has not paid very close attention to color. In the three years since my first SGIA experience I have kept tabs on the specialty graphic market and have even sold a fair amount of software into the industry. What better indicator could there be that color is becoming increasingly important?

The specialty graphic market is making the move to digital at a rate that exceeds that of traditional graphic arts. I believe the move to digital is driving the increased interest in color. Digital printing allows specialty printers to move into markets once controlled by traditional printers, and vice versa. As a result specialty graphic printers are now dealing with more color critical customers like consumer product companies.

I plan to address three themes in my SGIA Live coverage:

  • Increased interest in color verification and process control
  • The move to digital imaging and printing
  • Cross-over with traditional print as the industry goes digital

Remember to keep your eyes on JimRaffel.com for daily show coverage.

#57: On Virtual Proofing Thoughts after IPA

Published
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Jim Raffel
on June 20, 2007
in blogging, color, conferences, monitors and proofing
. 1 Comment

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.

Golden Nugget #50: Understanding Training Resources

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Jim Raffel
on March 15, 2007
in blogging and conferences
. 0 Comments

As I mentioned last week #47 generated a comment from Dale, which contained three good questions, the first of which I answered in #49. You may also recall that I promised to blog from the floor of the PMA show. I did so, and the PMA blog entry can be found at JimRaffel.com.Now, onto Dale’s second question:

2. In doing color management, what would be the best options as far as training? On-site consultations or seminars?

As I prepared to answer Dale’s question it occurred to me that without knowing more about his personal learning style I would be unable to answer the question correctly. This is the same dilemma we face when our ColorMetrix customer’s ask if they really need on-site training. Several options will be discussed below. The options increase in cost from very little to very expensive. Keep in mind the less an option costs in dollars your investment in time is usually greater.

Books: The options available to someone seeking Color Management training are many. While there are not a lot of good books on the subject yet, there are a few. Space prevents me from listing any, but Amazon or another search engine can show you the way. I generally recommend books to someone at the beginning of the color management journey. This is the stage to create your blueprint for what you will do and what you will not do. It’s the same for our customers who need to gain a deeper understanding of what process control can do to improve their overall bottom line.

Online Tools: The next option is to utilize the manuals, built help, and online help/training facilities provided by the manufacturer of the color management solutions you select. As we all know the quality of these resources varies greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer. We are moving toward collaborative tools like our ProofPass.com Wiki online resource. While today only ColorMetrix employees may add and edit pages, in the near future we plan to give that same option to some of our trusted users. (Interested in helping with the project? Drop me a line and we can discuss getting you editing privileges.)

Remote Control / Assistance: Many manufacturers now offer some form of online web based one-on-one or group-based training. In our case we utilize Webex. Webex is a very powerful tool which allows us to take control of your computer thus allowing us to show you how to use our tools on your machine. Sometimes this level of support is included in your software purchase, and sometimes there is an additional cost. Even if there is a cost it is typically much less than having someone on-site. First of all no travel expense is incurred and training can be scheduled in smaller time blocks. The best part is we can see what is happening on your computer and any set-up or configuration changes we help you make can then be preserved on your computer.

Seminars: This is one of my favorite ways to learn. Not only do you get to attend sessions normally conducted by some of the most experienced experts in your industry, but you also get to network with your peers. I normally find the networking and interaction which occurs away from the session to be of most value. This, however, is changing as more and more of these events offer lab sessions with computers set-up to fully try out an application with a qualified instructor. The downside here is that in a 1-2 hour session only so much detail can be covered so much of the detail of making it work still falls back to you and the three tools I have previously listed.

College Courses: Many community colleges and four year colleges now have educational programs that cover Color Management. While often the cost is not great, the time commitment is and is spread out over an entire school term normally. Having once taught one of these classes I find them to be a great blend of the four options listed before. You normally walk away with a great text book, have experienced hands on training and projects; and have met and networked with other professional from your area who are in the class.

On-Site Professional Services: While this option is expensive, there is no better way to jump start a program that needs to get off the ground quickly. There are many excellent color management consultants in our industry, and because they work in many different businesses they bring a unique point of view that will allow them to think outside the box. Many of these consultants also have a focus of specialty like the pressroom, or advertising agencies, or pre-press houses. The key is that if you pick well, you will be up and running before they leave your building. Also, most provide low or no cost telephone consultations for an extended period of time after the on-site visit.

Thoughts on PMA Show

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Jim Raffel
on March 10, 2007
in blogging, conferences, monitors, proofing and wide format
. 0 Comments

As I mentioned in my last post, my primary reason for attending PMA was to conduct meetings with key ColorMetrix business partners.  I did, however, have a few hours to roam the show floor yesterday afternoon and came away with a few observations.

While I am still impressed with the caliber of this show, it has made a shift to the consumer market.  Most of the wide format ink jet vendors had a presence, but it was really just part of a booth dedicated to consumer photographic equipment.  Some pro equipment could be found but the overall emphasis as I observed it was on point and shoot consumer cameras.

GE has entered the photographic market with both cameras and photo printers http://www.general-imaging.com/  They even baked cookies in the booth in a GE oven.

In the desktop and wide format ink jet market, very few RIP vendors showed up.  This leads me to believe that the vast majority of photo printing is happening through the print drivers provided by the print vendors.  I still see the photographic market as a growth one for ink jet RIP manufactures.  As more and more proofing moves from hard copy to virtual (monitor based) graphic arts RIP sales will continue to flatten and maybe even decrease.

I believe that photo printers (professionals and Labs) who are used to tight process controls for processors will look at ink jet proofing and ask how can we ensure that this device is stable and producing color the same as when we set it up months or years ago.  (There’s a little clue as to why I was at the show).