Investment Down in Color Management

As pointed out in the recent TrendWatch Graphic Arts special report titled "Color Management: Another Gray Area," investment in color management software has been declining.

In autumn 1998, investment in color management capabilities reached a high point of 11% among commercial and quick printers. While service bureaus and separators constituted and buoyed much of the early investment (19% of separators planned to invest in color management as recently as a year ago), prepress entities as a whole dropped to 8% in fall 2001.

TrendWatch surveys have always indicated that areas like color management were a function of company size—the larger the company, the more likely it would be to buy something like color management capability.

For commercial printers, however, a gradual decline in investment is seen among the largest firms (50+ employees), although there was an abrupt upturn indicated in the last TrendWatch survey. As for firms with 20 to 49 employees, investment has been up and down, and although a gradual overall decline can be plotted the last three surveys have shown an increase. Interestingly, some of the strongest and most consistent color management investment comes from 10-to-19-employee firms. There have been some conspicuous spikes within this group, but the overall trend is upward. As for the smallest shops, planned investment remains low.

It's hard for printers to be bullish on the subject of color management, in part because of the shift from critical color to "good-enough" color. Although standards have not been lowered, the basic desktop hardware and software has gotten better. The graphic arts industry has seen the continued evolution of "good-enough" typography; now it's color's turn.