Software - Colour Management

Four Pees has announced that it is now working with ColorLogic, a developer of high-quality colour management solutions. Four Pees takes on the task of international distributor for products such as CoPrA, ZePrA and ColorAnt.

ColorLogic adds a wide range of high-quality colour solutions to the Four Pees product portfolio, perfectly complementing the range of print & publishing solutions already in place. “When we started talking to ColorLogic about a possible partnership, we were immediately impressed by the quality of the products”, says Tom Peire, CEO at Four Pees. “They are very reliable; a knowledgeable technical team continuously improves the products and searches for new solutions for customers in day-to-day colour reproduction”.

Barbara Braun-Metz, CEO at ColorLogic summarises,” We believe that Four Pees is the perfect match as ColorLogic is a very technology driven company and Four Pees starts, where our work stops – delivering our products to the market. They have proven their skills and market knowledge with other solutions; so we trust our products, resellers and customers will be in good hands.”

ColorLogic has a range of powerful and high-quality colour management solutions built on open standards such as ICC and DeviceLink profiles. The solutions work on Mac and Windows and combine ease-of-use with powerful advanced features.

“Colour management can be very complicated, but our experience is that customers simply want their production to work smoothly with as little distraction as possible,” comments David van Driessche, CTO with Four Pees. “The ColorLogic solutions are unique because they streamline setup and maintenance by using powerful wizards with built-in intelligence while still allowing advanced customisation by colour experts”.

GMG has released version 2.0 of ProofControl which delivers contract-quality verification of proofs in seconds and makes colour accuracy objectively measurable, immediately detecting the slightest colour variation in a proof. The latest update supports verification of spot colours and GMG OpenColor profiles, as well as improving the user interface.

Using a spectrophotometer (external or automatically integrated within a printer), GMG ProofControl measures colour bars in seconds. The resulting values are compared with target values stored in the system. All information, such as actual and target values, and the control reports are saved in a database, making it easily accessible.

For all proofs within tolerance, a small adhesive label is printed. Users typically place the label on the back of each calibrated proof, assuring all who read the proof that it is within tolerance. In addition to supporting international standards, GMG ProofControl also lets users define their own quality criteria. So, users can define their own control strips, target values, measuring conditions and tolerances, which can be used as the basis for verification.

ProofControl 2.0 supports recent technology updates

“While GMG ProofControl still serves customers very well, an update was required to support some of the latest technologies. ProofControl 2.0 keeps the system’s reliability and well-known functionality, but adds new features such as verification of spot colors and GMG’s OpenColor profiles,” comments Victor Asseiceiro, Director Business Unit Packaging. “ProofControl 2.0 also has a user interface that users will find remarkably similar to that of GMG ColorProof.”

New GMG ProofControl 2.0 features include:

• In GMG ProofControl 2.0, users can also measure and verify spot colour strips and OpenColor profiles printed by GMG ColorProof.
• With GMG ProofControl 2.0, there is faster data exchange with GMG ColorProof. As soon as GMG ColorProof prints a control strip, a measurement job will automatically appear in GMG ProofControl. Spot colour definitions from the proof job and the correct reference are automatically selected for each strip.
• Easy generation of custom GMG ProofControl standards by importing GMG MX colour profiles.
• ProofControl 2.0 supports the new X-Rite i1Pro 2 measuring device
• A new user interface, similar to the look and feel of GMG ColorProof has been designed for greater ease-of-use.

“The proof is the most important tool for colour communication in print production. It plays a decisive role for colour corrections during data preparation and is also the colour reference when approving the printing and for ink control on the press. So, those in the print supply chain need to be assured that the proof they are seeing corresponds to accurate tolerances,” explains Asseiceiro. “With GMG ColorProof you are already assured of exceptional quality. But how do you communicate it? GMG ProofControl confirms that quality to others. It is a key element in a networked and standardised work environment. It delivers contract-quality verification of proofs in a matter of seconds, and makes colour accuracy objectively measurable.”

GMG ProofControl is available worldwide through GMG’s network of authorised dealers.

GMG has announced the commercial launch of its OpenColor software which offers precise and predicable spot colour simulation, with less effort than other systems.  The new software offers precise and predicable spot colour simulation and overprinting behavior or colour interplay. It creates high-quality multicolour profiles simulating the printing behaviour of diverse printing technologies and media types - if necessary, without use of ‘proprietary chart based’ press fingerprinting. Its unique, spectral-based colour model results in better colours simulations than any other proofing solution available.

While producing accurate colour proofs for most print applications is a relatively easy process —particularly when using GMG ColorProof—creating accurate proofs for packaging is still quite difficult. Package printers are increasing use of multicolour printing. Yet, standardisation does not exist because spot colours and custom ink sets with more than four colours are typically used, along with a wide range of print processes and substrates.

Often, these sets are comprised of solely spot colours, without CMYK. In addition, brand owners expect tight colour tolerances and reliable results for their brand colours, which require a good understanding of overprinting—the behaviour of inks when printed on top of each other. And, offset doesn’t overprint like gravure—ink film thickness and trapping properties are very different. Thus, printing and packaging companies spend an extraordinary amount of time fingerprinting their presses for all possible job variations, which includes a wide range of substrates, from paper to foils. This process is expensive, cumbersome and unreliable.

“Everyone in the packaging supply chain, from brand owners to design firms to package printers are dealing with a wide range of printing challenges,” observes Victor Asseiceiro, Director Business Unit Packaging. “They have to work with a wide variety of printing conditions with alternating numbers of colours, including CMYK and spots. GMG OpenColor offers an easy-to-use proofing solution. Brand owners have very high colour accuracy expectations, no matter where something is printed. GMG OpenColor is designed to address this complex and error prone problem in package production.”

New spectral modeling algorithms are coupled with spectral ink measurements that analyse spectral properties of each ink colour, as well as the substrate’s colourimetric properties. The measurement information is applied to a specific printing process (flexo, offset, gravure). Then process specific information is added (ink rotation, trapping, screening, etc.), and the final press condition is simulated. The process of profile creation is reduced from days to minutes, without expert knowledge. And, if needed, additional accuracy can be attained by taking additional overprint readings to meet the quality requirements of the customer.

GMG OpenColor offers significant timesavings and predictable print results. With GMG OpenColor, one single proof can accurately simulate all colours of the design. This reduces the complexity and the number of proofs. It subsequently simplifies the colour communication process between the partners in the supply chain. Colour matching at press is easier and it eliminates test runs at the press and improves customer satisfaction due to predictable results and saves costs.

Different versions of GMG OpenColor

OpenColor comes with options for different printing technologies, including offset, flexo, or gravure. Each option contains its own specific profile creation algorithm. While selection of one printing technology is required, it is possible to license all options.

GMG OpenColor is available in both a Basic or Plus version. The Plus version offers additional features for even greater quality to meet process control demands. These include:

• Use of the Create Profile Wizard for full control of the profiling process
• The ability to manually edit profiles; for example, substrate overprint behaviour or dot gain corrections.
• Enhanced print charts for even more precise overprint simulations. Spot colours can be characterised with charts that contain overprints.
• Export of static MXN profiles for offline use or to prevent profiles from dynamically—or unintentionally—changing.

“With GMG OpenColor, once prediction of overprint behaviour of inks is available, prepress companies and converters can eliminate colours within a job, reducing press stations without compromising critical brand colours. While done today, this process can be very expensive and is often created by trial and error,” explains Asseiceiro. “Accurate proofs help to prepare data, flexo plates and gravure printing cylinders correctly. The risk of having to stop the production because of wrong plates is significantly lower. The best part is that OpenColor offers simple proofing with easy profile creation - anyone can do it.”

Alwan Color Expertise will unveil its new OEM strategy at the GraphExpo 2012, and announce its inaugural partners - Caldera, Compose System and Dubsat.  Representatives of the three OEMs will welcome their customers and visitors on Alwan booth 154 at GraphExpo.

Printing Standards adoption has gained momentum worldwide thanks ISO 12647 and G7. Print Buyers and printers agree today that the files and the prints they deliver should comply with these industry standards.  File and Print conformance to standards is the mission and the technology Alwan has been delivering to the graphic industry since its foundation fourteen years ago.

Now Alwan's recognised vision and highly awarded technologies have received new and strong support from the three industry-innovating manufacturers, Caldera, Compose and Dubsat. All have embraced Alwan's vision on standardised workflows, and have committed to embed Alwan technology in their systems, enabling their customers to produce standardised colours, files and prints with the industry reference technologies.

Elie Khoury, founder and president of Alwan Color expertise is thrilled.  "Those who know Alwan know that Alwan is all about co-operation: human, technical and business co-operation. We are particularly happy today to see that our business approach and ethics are attracting attention of notorious companies such as Caldera, Compose and Dubsat. Their support has enabled us to improve our technologies even further, making them available to a larger number of users, and enabling our partners to improve their systems and offer their users standardised colour, files and prints.”

Joseph Mergui, CEO of Caldera, is looking forward to move the digital printing industry towards printing standards.  "When I met Elie Khoury for the first time in 2008, I knew that one day we would work together. His vision regarding conciliating printing standards and working practices using simple and automated tools made sense to our digital printing industry, but it was too early then. Today, Caldera users want to print to standards and match on their large format printer, customer colours that are printed on other processes, conventional or digital. This is the reason why we decided to join forces with Alwan. Today, we have two joint projects, the first is the very successful Caldera InkPerformer which is the digital printing version of Alwan's recognised and awarded Dynamic Ink Saving Technology. The second is Alwan's G7 certified system DynamicPrinterCalibration that we decided to offer with our next RIP version, and which has been also optimised by our joint teams for large and grand format printers inks, gamuts and substrates."

Tom Sit, CEO of Compose System, adds, "Compose is an Alwan distributor and an OEM partner for Global Graphics Harlequin RIP for years. We have hundreds of satisfied users printing with Alwan and Harlequin technologies worldwide. However these two complementary solutions were separate and available on different platforms. Now, thanks to Alwan, Compose and Global Graphics joint efforts, we have succeeded to integrate Alwan award winning DeviceLink Profile technology in the Harlequin RIP, enabling thousands of additional users to benefit from Alwan's industry reference colour management and standardisation technology within their Harlequin RIP.  This is great news for our market, and great news for us."

Olivier de Pina, Adsend's global product manager, is excited about the services the relationship with Alwan will bring to Adsend’s AdGate users in particular.  "With the global adoption of printing standards, we wanted to offer our ad agency users the ability not just to manage their colours, but to produce standardised colours and files that will print without any problems on any printing process worldwide. After investigating the available technologies and holding discussions with many prepress and printing companies worldwide, it was highly apparent to us that Alwan technology is the standout choice for us and for our customers thanks to its recognised performance and wide adoption. Alwan will be an excellent addition to our existing partners, as this new co-operation will allow Dubsat to provide PDF standardisation services to our users worldwide, with the guarantee that their colours can match regardless of the printer and the printing technology."

Caldera, Compose and Dubsat’s new software and services embedding Alwan technologies will be available to their customers Q4 2012.

Fujifilm has said that Cross Media 2012 - scheduled to take place in London on 3rd and 4th September - is the 'ideal platform' to demonstrate the benefits of its recently launched XMF ColorPath cloud-based colour management system. Designed to help printers calibrate equipment and maintain compliance to printing standards, the system can work across multiple print processes, including offset, digital and screen, helping printers maintain colour consistency across these processes.

Differences in colour can have a huge effect on a finished product, so for a printer to have a good system in place that makes it easy to remain compliant to standards such as ISO 12647-2 is a big benefit. As well as improving the consistent look of print across multiple processes, a recognised colour management system can also help printers retain customers and grow business, selling upstream to corporate brand owners - where colour consistency is critical.

Fujifilm’s comprehensive colour management system is made up of two main components:

1. XMF ColorPath Organizer - a set of colour management configuration tools that are included as standard in a new module within Fujifilm’s XMF Workflow version 5. This module manages the application of colour profiles within the print production process.
2. XMF ColorPath Sync – a cloud-based colour management system for managing colour to the ISO 12647-2 standard across many different print devices. The solution is all managed via a web browser, with even the spectrophotometers plugged directly into the web browser, so there is no software client to install. In addition to creating device link profiles to match ISO 12647-2, XMF ColorPath Sync will also check compliance to the standard and when conditions such as variations in humidity or media stock cause devices to drift out of compliance, XMF ColorPath Sync will create on the fly colour corrections to re-align the colour output to the standard.

When colour charts are measured by XMF ColorPath, delivery of colour measurements to the cloud is automatic, so too is the delivery of ISO TVI (Tonal Value Increase) curves directly into the RIPs used to drive the various printing devices. So not only are savings made by reducing colour errors and hence ink usage, but XMF ColorPath also improves the automation and efficiency with which colour is managed across in-house print devices, or across multiple print locations.

John Davies, business strategy manager, workflow, FUJIFILM Europe, comments, “We are excited to be able to use Cross Media 2012 to explain to the different mix of visitors how a good colour management system is critical in the execution of campaigns using different print processes. It’s a great opportunity for us to educate both printers and print buyers about a technology that really can simplify production and help fulfil the requirements of brand owners.”

Fujifilm will be exhibiting on stand 154.

GMG is launching of two new products - GMG OpenColor and GMG CoZone.  GMG OpenColor is a revolutionary spot colour tool for the packaging market that will greatly extend colour control and repeatability in this sector, whilst GMG CoZone is a comprehensive cloud solution for professional media and color management users that will redefine how color management is used in the future.

These solutions will be demonstrated in Hall 4, Booth B25, at drupa and visitors to the exhibition will not only see these new products, but also exciting new features of established, world-class GMG solutions. Most notable of these is GMG’s groundbreaking ProductionSuite. Launched in February to target the booming wide format market, this modular solution is already transforming press rooms around the world. In addition, advances and upgrades to the GMG prepress portfolio, featuring products such as GMG ColorProof, GMG ColorServer and GMG InkOptimizer, will be showcased.

In addition to the GMG booth, visitors will also be able to experience GMG solutions at the Epson booth in Hall 05 (Booth A01-1), HP (Hall 04, Booth D60-1), Roland (Hall 09, Booth E04), UPM (Hall 06, Booth D60) and Zünd (Hall 09, Booth C03), working with diverse output devices and production environments.

Ian Scott, Managing Director at GMG, has no doubt that GMG's two product innovations will hit the market “like a technological thunderbolt”. He adds, "With GMG OpenColor we will herald a new era in packaging printing. Never before has a proofing solution been able to control process and spot colours like GMG OpenColor. Our second highlight is located in the Cloud: With GMG CoZone we have pioneered an integrated GMG web strategy. We have put into action what media managers really want: transparent project control and secure standards that are available to all process partners at all times. I believe that GMG CoZone is the definitive answer to soft-proofing."