Remote Digital Proofing

To further compress time and distance and to capitalize on digital processes in use, printers, print buyers, publishers, and graphic designers are all taking a closer look these days at remote proofing, either the hard or soft versions.

"With everyone using the Internet to send files, remote proofing is a natural way to expedite tracking and facilitate customer approvals," says one color trade shop manager. "Right now no one thinks we'll ever do high-end color OKs on a monitor, but just look how far proofing has come outside the film-based world."

Says Michael Rodriguez, technical director for R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, "High-end remote proofing could definitely save time and money. Right now we're experimenting with a remote-type soft proofer when speed is of the essence. We have many publishing customers driving this trend; for example, Time, Inc. is very interested in remote proofing to improve speed and consistency."

But Mark Oglesby of Seiz Printing, Acworth, Ga., is skeptical for now. He says, "We've been trying different systems and plan to implement remote proofing in the near future. But while we wouldn't use a proof like this for color-critical work, we do see its use as a composition proof."

Remote soft proofing using a computer monitor has not yet piqued a lot of interest. According to the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation's Digital Proofing Study, Part VI, half of the respondents did not offer remote soft proofing to their customers and only 5.4% offer remote soft proofing to 15% to 40% of their customers.

For those respondents who did provide remote soft proofing, the two primary reasons were for proofreading and verifying last-minute changes.

In the meantime, a lot of interest and progress is going on on the hard-copy remote proofing front.

The GATF study found that 50.5% of the respondents have customers who expressed some interest in remote hard proofing while 41.3% had customers with no interest. Only 4.6% showed extensive interest.

The biggest question is who—the printer, ad agency, or corporate client—has responsibility to maintain and calibrate the remote proofing device. Another resolution being determined is who pays for the consumables used on the remote proofing device.

Agfa is positioning itself for growth in remote digital proofing. "We feel that our Sherpa products offer an ideal solution to remote proofing needs," says Deborah A. Hutcheson, Agfa's senior product marketing manager for proofing systems. "We sell our units as a system in the range of $12,000 to $31,500, with a page cost per proof of $1.69," which compares to well over $100,000 for a high-end digital halftone system and a page cost of around $12.

DuPont Color Proofing just launched its Certified Color remote proofing system using WaterProof. "This system produces a hard-copy proof that can be certified all over the world," says Ken Lowden, marketing and industry relations manager.

Imation Corp. recently announced a partnership with RealTimeImage to develop a comprehensive virtual proofing technology in color-critical markets.

This sophisticated "virtual" proof, which Imation will introduce at Print 01, allows a true simulation of a Matchprint standard proof, with CMYK color, to be viewed on a monitor. This proof, says Imation, will save both time and costs and can be output to either a Matchprint Professional Server with the Xerox DocuColor 12 or to a Matchprint Inkjet System for those who want a hard copy.

Both options produce accurate simulations of the Matchprint standard proof at great savings in cost and time, says Imation.

Viv-A-Color Inc. is a sheetfed shop in Pewaukee, Wis. that's undergoing the transition to digital proofing from analog proofing (down to about 20%).

"Two years ago, in response to a request from an ad agency client in Texas and a few other customers, we installed a Wam!Proof system to supplement our Kodak Approval and Iris ink-jet proofers," says technical director Paul Consolazione.

He recounts the experience of one client, which reduced its two-week turnaround to just three days. The company had multiple designers working in different locations; each designer would have to send proofs to the client in a central location, where changes would be made then revised proofs sent back in an overnight express tube to all of the designers.

Now, Consolazione continues, the designers send the job directly to Viv-A-Color, which RIPs the files and sends them to the client, who proofs the job and makes changes via telephone. The printer then makes plates for itself or sends the files to an outside printer.

"We saw the benefit of making proofs from the same files that we used to expose plates," says Consolazione. "We can save our RIPped files with the same digital integrity as those we send to clients. We don't want PostScript files to be reinterpreted."

"Yes," he adds, "we're still making analog proofs but they slow everything down. Clients are realizing that digital proofing is the way to compress turnaround time, so they're getting more comfortable and a lot more receptive."

Also making use of remote proofing is the Chicago division of Schawk, a nationwide prepress and color separation firm whose two biggest accounts are Bayer, the large pharmaceutical firm, and Kraft Foods. Recently Schawk-Chicago installed Group Logic's MassTransit Enterprise and Imagexpo systems to exchange files with its client.

MassTransit Enterprise is a digital shipping and receiving department that automates and manages the transfer of graphics, multimedia, and other production files between print media suppliers and their customers. Imagexpo is a remote soft-proofing solution that uses sophisticated annotation and interactive conferencing capabilities to provide faster, more efficient multi-location review and approval of text and graphics prior to production of print media.

"For Bayer's Consumer Care Division, we remote proof all of the packaging," says David Dornback, systems administrator for Schawk-Chicago. "A box of aspirin may be accompanied by a set of instructions, a front and back label, and a shoulder label that all need to be proofed for content for both legal and nutritional laws.

"We use MassTransit to send files back and forth, to cut down the length of the approval cycle and bypass overnight delivery services. Once the files are proofed for content, we send them to the printer with a contract proof."

For the past 18 months, Schawk-Chicago has been using Serendipity Software's BlackMagic, a color proofing tool that allows Schawk to produce a color-calibrated proof from any file format. "It really is 'black magic,' " says Dornback. "The software can translate a proprietary-system file into a PDF file."

He says that about 70% of the division's proofs are now digital in form, adding, "Some printers still require film, so as a color separator we have to provide that."

In June, BEST GmbH, which provides printing and prepress solutions, introduced a remote proofing function on its BESTColor 4.5 versions that automatically measures the provided control strips by using a spectrophotometer. The measured data, together with the print file, is then transferred electronically via the Internet.

As soon as the recipient starts the job, the supplied proof is also measured by a color sensor. Software compares the measured values of the proofs of both parties, then confirms the results to the sender automatically stating whether the color difference between both printouts falls within acceptable limits.

The format for data exchange is PDF (Portable Document Format); the format for the measured results is JDF (Job Definition Format).