JimRaffel.com » ISO

#69 IDEAlliance Proofing Summit in Review

JimRaffel — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:00:00 +0000

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.

#40 Grey Balance & Printing like a Master

JimRaffel — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 15:28:37 +0000

I have written before about the Printing across borders initiative and late last week made a post to the mail list which I feel generated a very good response. My post shown below was in response to a post questioning the GRACoL MasterPrinter‚Ñ¢ program:

It stands to reason that that a printer with tight control over TVI would in fact also be a “better” MasterPrinterT. With conventional 4/color process printing (both offset and flexo) large variation in dot size will cause large shifts in color.

Also, in some testing (unrelated to G7T method) we have found very large delta E shifts in grey balance do not necessarily translate to large or any shift in saturated colors at the outer reaches of the gamut. So, if part of ones work is reproduction of saturated corporate colors G7 process control techniques alone may not be sufficient.

link(subscription required)

Joseph J. Pasky made the following comments in response to the first paragraph above:

Yes, that is exactly correct…a point that Felix Brunner has been trying to make for more than 30 years. Even small shifts in midtone gray balance are FAR more noticeable that very large changes in SID. He is the one who ‘invented’ controlling a press with midtone, not only SIDs. From my understanding, he’s even got patents on several aspects of this. (GRACoL didn’t come up with this ‘last week’ in a marketing focus group.) Brunner established the order of importance: 1. gray balance, 2. tone reproduction, 3. color. But, he also looks at every aspect of the reproduction curve, from highlights to solids.

link(subscription required)

Others made some very valid comments also but I decided to pick the one that told me I was “exactly correct.” Seriously, the group has generated some good discussions about printing to standards and using new methodologies. I would suggest visiting the web-site and subscribing to the email list.

On Standards, Dues, and Barriers to Entry

JimRaffel — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 16:21:13 +0000

I have been getting a good deal of pressure to post my position on GRACoL G7, and have been holding off for one very simple reason. My comments will “go against the grain” as one fellow blogger put it. As one who was not involved in the process I feel that it would be somewhat counterproductive to take such a position. Which brings me to my point, why was I not involved in the process?

As a life long (adult life) student of marketing, I am very familiar with the concept of barriers to entry, and try to set them very high for anyone who chooses to play in my game (color measurement software). I think that in the professional world where one company is trying to win and to a certain extent must do so at the expense of another barriers to entry are a great thing.

Where I feel barriers to entry have no place is in the creation of industry wide standards. Let me illustrate with two examples. ColorMetrix is a dues paying member of NEPS (excellent organization providing exceptional benefits to members). As a small company our dues are a very reasonable and affordable $295/year. Payment of these dues gets us several high quality research reports each year AND membership on any CGATS group we wish to participate in. CGATS by extension provides access to ISO. It seems to me even a start-up company can afford $295/year.

Idealliance on the other hand, appears to have a minimum annual dues cost of $2,500. For a small company like ours, folks, this is a barrier to entry. Remember, this is like admission to the club; it just gets you in the front door. You still need to pay for all your own drinks. Or in the case of GRACoL all your own travel, etc. to the pressruns and any meetings being held. It is also not a one time fee, but an annual fee. I can maintain my membership in NPES for almost 10 years for that same $2,500.

This is a bit of a rant (which I have tried not to do here), but I can’t help but wonder if this barrier to entry is intentional. If you have never commented on a JimRaffel.com post…this would be the one.