Digital Output - May 2008 - (Page 20)

A color control strip from International Digital Enterprise Alliance (IDEAlliance). The company custom developed an archive-quality inkjet canvas along with a high-end wide format scanner to offer artists the assurance that their reproduction would survive for generations, Vézina explains. For Numart, color management is “essential, the success of our business is entirely based on the fact that we have mastered color management.” The firm employs Epson printers and scanners as well as Canon printers. They print on their Epsons with the Epson Ultrachome K3 inkset. For color management, the company uses Datacolor tools, including the new Spyder3Studio suite. “We can create accurate ICC profiles that allow us to print in color and still get correct B&W results with the same sets of profiles. It allows us to make B&W inkjet prints for photographers that look like a traditional silver halide B&W,” Vézina says. Mastering color management is not terribly difficult, he adds, but it takes time. “You often need real life cases, and bugs, to improve your skills, but it’s worth it,” he says, “because once you master it you become much more efficient.” CA-based professional photographer Andy Katz has been printing his own large format work for over eight years. “I’ve spent my whole life in a dark room,” he confesses. Katz now totes a digital camera as well, scanning and printing his work on an Epson Stylus Pro 10000 and 9800. Most recently he used an HP Designjet Z3100. For Katz, a color-managed workflow means cost savings. “When you think about fine art printing, the inks, and paper—they’re not cheap.” Katz recently purchased his HP Designjet just prior to receiving an offer to produce 42, 40x50 prints for a one man show entitled Mixed Emotions at the prestigious Mumm Napa Gallery in CA. “I was just about to board a plane to India for a shoot and they wanted the prints three weeks after I returned,” he shares. Despite the break neck pace, Katz was able to meet the deadline, producing his prints primarily on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Pearl 320gsm. From Proof to Profit Color management is an integral part of the proofing process. A firm understanding of color management principles is the cornerstone of both successful contract proofing businesses and in the creation of wide format digital graphics. The contract proofing market is stable, growing at roughly two to three percent a year, shares Ian Mackenzie, marketing VP, Chromaticity, Inc. The big drivers in the business are centralizing color and proofing to standards, he says. Proofing technologies initially adopted in the commercial print and publishing markets are migrating upstream to content creators, agencies, and publishers. Meanwhile, offset printers diversify themselves by adding wide format digital to tackle the signage market, says James Summers, president, GMG. The consolidation of print technologies and the evolution of display platforms is driving a need for color solutions and standards that address a changing market, vendors say. “It’s no longer segmented,” Mackenzie observes. “Commercial lithographers are installing wide format printers to do their own proofing or for signage.” As printers add multiple platforms and promote themselves as a one stop shop, they enter a world of multiple RIPs, drivers, and user interfaces. Therefore one of the key objectives “is to manage that process to achieve consistent color, and to do it with as little of what we call RIP-a-rama as possible,” Mackenzie says. “The industry wants single graphical user interface (GUI ) solutions—a central color server” to feed multiple output devices, from aqueous inkjets to UV plotters. Many wide format shops in particular edit a file for a specific output device, Summers observes. “That creates an issue for them if a customer wants to output it on a different machine, or media, or even on a different day or time. We want them to edit a file in one central color space to maintain consistency as the file moves across printing platforms,” he advises. Even if a shop is not offering proofing as a service, using precise color management to maintain more consistency will reduce costs and improve operational efficiency, Summers notes. www.digitaloutput.net Proofing Tools Controlling Color olor management and proofing is all about measurement and control. To institute top-notch color management from proof to print you need the right tools. It starts with a monitor capable of reproducing a multitude of colors that will pass through your printer. Displays from Apple and EIZO are popular among designers and soft proofers. EIZO’s latest monitor, the ColorEdge CG222W, offers internal hardware calibration versus caliPantone huey is a monibration at the computer tor calibration tool used graphics card level. in wide format proofing. C These same suppliers offer their own proofing media, but third party media is also available from Alameda Company, ColorGATE, EFI, and LexJet. Proofing media that is SWOP or GRACol certified means it’s met the IDEAlliance’s benchmarks for color proofing. RIPs are another core component in the proofing workflow. Software from ColorBurst, EFI, GMG, iProof Systems, and PerfectProof USA Inc. are commonly used in a Datacolor’s monitor calibraproofing environment. tion tool, Spyder3Elite. Finally, a proof only looks as good as the light it’s viewed under. Viewing stands from such companies as GTI Graphic Technology, Inc. and JUST Normlicht Group will provide ISO-standard illumination for printed proofs in a variety of sizes. Monitor calibration tools from Pantone/X-Rite and Datacolor—combining hardware and profile building software— run as low as $89 for Pantone huey to $279 for Datacolor’s Spyder3Elite. Printer solutions can range from $500 and up. There are also complete suites available to tackle both monitor and printer profiling, such as X-Rite’s i1Proof, for $1,645. It bundles tools for measuring color output from monitors, CMYK and RGB printers, and even projectors. The proofing market is primarily aqueous inkjetbased with wide format models available from AGFA, Canon, Epson, HP, and Kodak. AGFA offers the :Grand SherpaMatic. Canon’s imagePROGRAF printers are used in proofing as are Epson’s Stylus Pro printers and HP’s Designjets. Kodak provides both Kodak MATCHPRINT Inkjet proofer and Kodak VERIS proofer. Suites such as X-Rite’s i1Proof bundle measure color output from monitors, CMYK and RGB printers, and projectors. 20 Digital Output May 2008 http://www.digitaloutput.net http://www.digitaloutput.net

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Digital Output - May 2008

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