SPECTRUM 2001 CONFERENCE NOTES

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"Desktop" Proofing and Soft-Proofing: What are the real issues?

Moderated by:

Nubar Nakashian
President
Quality House of Graphics

Don Carli of Nima Hunter Inc. conducted a study of color management for NPES. The vendors were concerned that color management adoption rates did not meet their objectives. Don's company interviewed 500 companies, including 200 providers of color management, 120 users of color man-agement, and the remainder being non-users/non-vendors. Digital proofing and CTP were highly rated as important to the future; more so than remote proofing or cross-media publishing, but over 74% rated color management at critical. However, when looking for a definition of color management, they got a different answer from each participant and found that there is no standard definition of color manage-ment in any of the standards or specifications. When going to actual expenditures, they found that 57% were using calibrated viewing and lighting, and this was the highest implementation rate on the list! There is a gap between what people thought is on the market and what really is available. 93% of users felt that color devices must match output across network for equipment of the same type!!!

What can be done? First of all, we need to agree on and promote a definition of color management and close the gaps between expectations and performance. Neil O'Callaghan, Sr. Vice President of Tech-nology at Applied Graphics Technology mentioned that soft proofing should provide many savings including hard-copy proofs are time consuming to make, save on delivery time, get correction informa-tion back sooner & start re-work sooner and more.

Kin Wah Lam, Director of Digital Development at Time Inc discussed his view of softproofing and where they are going. They generate a lot of proofs internally and receive a lot of proofs from locations all over the world. They would like to see a more reliable and simpler method for managing color and proofing; however CRT technology isn't the answer. According to Lam, if you calibrate your CRT, just wait until a pressman puts a radio next to it; it will though your color right off. LCD is better than CRT in some ways, but you are limited by viewing angle. Micro Mirrors are promising, but Lam ad-mits that he doesn't know enough about this new technology. Lam does believe that OLED, which does not have viewing angle limitations, has great promise. We need color management and ICC compliance, but the controlling the displays using calibration devices and measurement equipment must be easier to use. According to Lam, the benefits of soft proofing are:

• No shipping of hard proofs
• No iffy hard proofs
• Can be used by press side
• History tracking is available
• Also serve as a transmission system
• Flight checking of files is part of the workflow

Current issues for soft proofing include:

• Controlled environment tens to be too dark
• Color stability and repeatability from system to system is questionable

Kevin Barton, Project Manager-Offset Optimization, RR Donnelley-Technology Center said that the proofing environment has changed over the years. Is perfect color end to end the goal?

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