Leap into a new spectrum

Modern print companies are facing an ongoing battle to win business. While some have opted to reduce prices in an effort to bring in new work, others have invested in new print equipment boasting impressive production credentials in order to take on new work.

However, another option that is not always the first thought in printers’ mind is how they address colour management issues within the production process. And while such technology will enable printers to take more control over stabilising the output from the various devices they run—from large-format inkjet to offset litho—it will also help them ensure that the final product they produce is of a higher standard than competitors.

With this in mind, what are some of the latest colour management solutions on offer to the market and how can such software help printers get a firmer grip on their business in what is a highly competitive market?

Crucial role

One company heavily involved in this sector of the industry is Colour Engine, which has a wide-range of tailor made solutions on offer to the market. Managing director Mark Anderton says being able to offer a certain level of output to customers is of great importance in the modern industry and that colour management software is ‘crucial’ in achieving such standards.

“Colour management is one of the areas where printers can differentiate,” says Anderton, who adds: “Although we can help clients save money and speed up processes on production, but what we think is more interesting is using colour management as a sales differentiator.

“If you are a commercial printer and have a very wide range of output devices, getting the best visual appearance from the devices for marketing campaigns is a massive differentiator, as not that many people can do it. The ability to have a good understanding of the core management means you can pitch for work that others cannot.”

Leading on from this, Anderton highlights some of the solutions available from Colour Engine through its strategic business partnerships. First among these is Alwa, which specialises in colour management and, in Anderton’s words, has a, ‘very advanced’ set of solutions that Colour Engine installs, train customers on, and supports.

Another solution available through Colour Engine is Remote Director, which is a colour accurate monitor proofing tool that can be used in both the studio and press room environments.



Anderton goes on to say that while these products do offer effective solutions to printers, it is more important that they understand exactly what they want out of a product before investing in new software.

“Anybody can buy software, but more important than buying the right software is knowing how to use the product,” Anderton says, adding: “The software means nothing without understanding what you want to achieve and how to save money, and we think that is a particular skill-set that Colour Engine can help with.


“We can help clients understand if the software is going to save them money and relevant, and we can explain how it is going to work and what we are going to do to ensure it achieves these targets. It is a bit of a paradox, but, for us, it is about services and looking after your clients.”

Long-term focus

Toby Burnett, managing director at GMG UK, picks up on this point, stating that ensuring colour replication across the print production process is ‘crucial’ for printers—especially with customers now a lot more savvy about colour standards.

Burnett explains: “Colour is important from the moment someone conceptualises what they want something to look like, through to when the product is printed—they want the colour to carry on right through the process. However, this doesn’t necessarily end with one product; the customer may want other things printed the same colour. For example, a local car dealership may want letterheads, business cards and point-of-sale material printed, and you have to ensure colour is the same across all products.



“Colour management has two very important places—at the place where you actually create the concept and getting that into the right space, as well as in the production process itself. All devices produce colour differently and it is up to the colour management soft-ware to ensure they all produce the same colour.”

Burnett goes on to explain that with print companies using a range of different technologies in the modern industry, colour management across these devices can be a tricky process. However, he says GMG offers patented technology that will allow printer to do just this.

He expands: “At the profile stage, we take a device, analyse how it prints, and by changing its CMYK values, we get it to match a known printing standard. This is fine at the start, but after some time, the devices will change their colour output due to environmental issues such as temperature as well as other considerations like substrate type.

“Our unique position is that we have a calibration profile that targets the original value we had with the printer and we can bring a device back to the same colour condition it was in when we first profiled it.

“Our big USP is our 11,000 systems around the world; they are all capable of calibrating to the same colour space so that they all match each other. This allows them to share their profile with other companies in their supply chain to ensure colour remains the same across the process. We can basically take any device and calibrate it in the same way that we do a proofing system.”

Trail blazers

Brunett’s comments are indicative of just how big the market for colour management systems have become. And while there are a myriad of providers on the market offering tailored solutions, there are also some big guns that moved quickly early on in the sector’s history to provide a solution to a problem which has only become worse in recent years. This is namely that many printers are now having to cope with providing a myriad of print products to a single customer. This often means using large-format inkjet devices, digital toner printers, and offset litho technology to complete a single job that could span everything from banners to brochures—with each and every print needing to have the same exact shade of Pantone specific brand colour to the naked eye.
 
One of the first companies to deal with this issue was EFI. Its field and channel marketing manager, Kerry Maloney, believes that colour management is becoming an increasingly important consideration for print companies due to this specific challenge: “The commercial printer has always had colour management in his or her environment, but historically this was limited to just the proofing stage. That all changed when printers started to bring digital print into their environment, and especially when they started to bring inkjet technology into their businesses. Print buyers and end-users then became familiar with standardisation and those companies that could offer a properly standardised print portfolio gained an edge over their competition, and that remains true today.”

Maloney continues: “The way this sector is evolving is that people are becoming more aware of the need for colour management and standardisation at a quicker rate. What that means is that our software has to get quicker, smarter, and easier to use so people can get that time-to-colour down. The easier and quicker colour management software is to use, the more likely people are to use it and the end product will offer a better result.”



She highlights EFI’s Color Profiler Suite as one of the company’s solutions to have been developed under this strategy. Describing this as being ‘at the heart’ of EFI RIP technology, Color Profiler can be used both in the cut-sheet environment as well as in wide-format through the firm’s Fiery range.

Maloney comments: “Whether it is calibration, profiling or profile editing, all of those functions are in Color Profiler. For example, a commercial printer could be proofing a product for a litho press, while also doing a wide-format job and a short-run digital cut-sheet product to accompany the same campaign. EFI can manage these using the same colour management technology.

“What is vital is that printers need to, as part of their offering, illustrate they are printing to a specific colour and quality standard, while explaining to customers the processes and software that underpins it. This will give the print buyer confidence, as most today will expect that every piece of print in your business will match that corporate shade or Pantone colour. Some will even want to know the details of the standards you adhere to and the tolerances you are printing to.”

Streamlined platform

Also active in the colour management sector is Fujifilm, another big gun that offers a number of options to the market. John Davies, business strategy and marketing manager, print production workflow solutions, Fujifilm Graphic Systems Europe, likewise feels that it is critical for modern-day colour management software to offer an easy-to-use system in order to achieve results.

Davies explains: “In a commercial printing company, they may only have one colour expert, and if they are away, others won’t know what to do if things go wrong. Within our software, we’ve simplified the process so that as long as you follow the procedure, you will have a colour matching output on your press.


“We’ve stripped away many of the unnecessary settings that exist in many products. We’ve taken away all that we can and given customers an easier procedure to follow.”

One product in particular that has been developed using the easy-to-use focus is XMF ColorPath, which Davies says can be used to manage colour on both offset printing presses and digital devices.

Speaking about this solution, Davies says: “It has a focus on conforming colour to the various ISO standards, so the product in general will allow printers to bring new devices into the ISO standard quite easily. Also, on an ongoing basis, it gives them tools to check and maintain their printing standards, and if there is any deviation, then the software will get this back into line.”



Rounding up the importance of products like XMF ColorPath within the printing process, Davies concludes: “Colour management software provides printers with the assurance that they are printing at a good quality and also allows them to show their clients that they are printing to ISO standards. This can act as one of their benefits as not every company is printing to certain colour standards.”

O Factoid: Arnold J. Beckman and the National Technologies Laboratory (NTL) invented the Beckman DU spectrophotometer in 1940. Although developed for the chemicals industry, the technology was soon applied to the print industry to measure colour accuracy. O

So, while some see colour management software as simply a way of ensuring colour remains the same across the process, it seems such solutions can go a lot deeper than this and could prove a crucial tool in helping print-service-providers win new business and eveb break into new markets. And with plenty of options available in the market place, printers are not short of options when it comes to picking out the best solution for their business.




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