Proofing 101

-- Graphic Arts Online, 11/1/2000

The proofing market originally was centered by creative elements in the graphic arts to match proofs with originals. Press proofing handled this task, and all was well until Eastman Kodak introduced its Kodachrome offering and created a color revolution--one in which the print process could not match the color qualities of a transparency.

A major industry shift, which took nearly 50 years to complete, was necessary, and eventually the approach that the proof should attempt to match the printed (actually, printable) image, not the original, came to fruition. The SWOP committee helped to cement this goal by providing realistic target points agreed upon by printers, and thus created continuity with printer output color separations supplied by many vendors.