Inkjet is rising to the challenge of contract proofing. Although it has some way to go, the quality of the printers and their Rips is improving. By Laurel Brunner.

　　Most people would agree that inkjet proofing technologies are perfectly adequate for all sorts of applications. For high end work, few would dispute that they are largely outgunned by wet proofing, digital halftone proofers and the like.

　　Recently however, there has been a substantial rise in the quality of inkjet alternatives, and especially the Rips that drive them. With the right software and profiling technology, it is becoming possible to predict moiré, check traps and overprints, and even see halftone dots using a relatively low-cost system.

　　That developers have started to add halftone rendering capabilities to their inkjet offerings suggests that another highly expensive technology will soon become more affordable and so accessible to a wider market. The quality of inkjet-based halftone proofers may still leave a lot to be desired, but true halftone proofing is no longer the exclusive preserve of very high end devices.

　　Excite extreme emotions

　　Proofing is one of those topics that tends to excite extreme emotions in people. The performance expectations of an output device used purely for interim content checking, are far removed from those of a device that is supposed to replicate the appearance of said content on press. And even in the press context, the issue is highly subjective.

　　Prestigious corporate report and accounts work places far more stringent demands on the proofing technology than does an election pamphlet with a couple of spot colours. It comes back inevitably to the value of the contract and especially to the price of failure.

　　Extremely high quality colour work has fuelled the high end digital proofing business, even though many industry pundits believed this market would be dead by now. That has not

　　Happened, but there has indisputably been an explosion in the use of inkjet technologies for proofing, largely because of the plurality and breadth of the less pernickety print sectors.

　　Developers of inkjet technologies and controller software are now extending their capabilities to halftone rendering, to enhance their offerings for these growing markets.

　　For most print buyers, colour accuracy matters more than rosettes, but interestingly whether a proofer images dots or not, the differentiating technology is the Rip and the colour management tools functioning upstream of the final output. Data management in combination with technology that manipulates droplet size and mechanics to control the droplets' behaviour has produced inkjet printers capable of replicating dot structures.

　　Many of these tools from the likes of Agfa, Seecolor, Compose, Best, Colorblind and Colorbus are most often used in newspaper applications. Although newspapers print on lower grade stock than most commercial printers, accurate proofing is just as important and the technologies are relevant for certain sectors of the commercial market too.

　　Whether the less demanding print sectors will really appreciate recent development efforts remains to be seen. How much small to medium-sized printers and repro houses care will probably depend on the extent to which customers would be prepared to pay a premium for true dot proofs.

　　Although many printers simply must have the ultimate match between proof and press, for many applications, true replication goes beyond what the customer requires. Even though dot proofs are the only sure-fire means of reproducing what will be what on press, many users are perfectly happy with a contone proof.

　　Indeed, many customers consider a photo-realistic proof to be the better option. They are not interested in paying a premium for a true halftone simulation of the final print, because they trust the printer and because the perceived risk is far less these days than it was a few years ago.

　　This has a lot to do with user confidence and wider prepress knowledge, but it also reflects changes in the printing business. The trend towards shorter runs means reduced value contracts and so the cost of getting it wrong. The days when average print runs numbered tens of thousands have passed and with them rigid dependency on contract proofs and acceptance of the premium they carry.

　　Diversity of participants

　　Contract proofing has not passed its sell-by date, but its role has definitely changed. For many applications, a proof is just not as critical as it once was. There are still companies at both extremes and all points in between in need of solutions, which is why there is such a diversity of participants in the market. These range from the likes of Agfa and KPG to a host of smaller companies such as GMG and Compose.

　　Digital workflows and network-based production have helped to create a market for all sorts of proofing technologies. The digital content supply chain involves many users, most of whom will need to proof a hard copy of the material as it moves along the production chain. Thus a single job will be proofed in many different ways, from on screen soft proofing through to full on digital halftone proofs.

　　Within the development community, KPG is the only company to offer proofers on every level with both digital and analogue devices for interim and contract proofing, thanks to acquisition of Imation's colour business and Encad last year. The company has recognised that maximising the range of output options offered, will increase the number of users consuming KPG media.

　　Craig Robertson, KPG's product marketing manager for colour technologies, says: "We supply such a range [of proofers] because we are a media supplier. As the client comes closer to the agency, printer or whatever, proofs go across all users in the supply chain, so we will supply whatever our customers need."

　　A Matchprint Rip driving a Canon, HP, or Epson inkjet device costs less than £1,000, whereas the top end Approval XP4 digital halftone colour proofing engine is nearer the £100,000 mark. A range of front ends drive Approval which has done very well in the market and the device offers users the rare option of setting individual ink densities and dot gains.

　　Nearly any press condition can be replicated, with the Approval producing a halftone proof in exactly the same way as an image recorder or ctp device. At 16 pages per hour, KPG claims this device to be the industry's fastest, most productive digital halftone colour proofing system available.

　　One of KPG's customers is London repro house and printing company Zebra which recently installed a KPG Digital Matchprint. Zebra also has a Creo Quantum Spectrum platesetter functioning with the same Rip as the Digital Matchprint, and which is also used for proofing.

　　As Paul Samuels, IT systems director says: "Following discussion with our clients from both repro and print perspectives, we found that publishers have

　　Reservations about proofing in digital workflows and were continuing to produce proofs generated from film.

　　"Likewise, design and direct mail clients found proofing devices capable of imposed B1 proofs unsatisfactory for many projects. This left wet proofing which is expensive to correct. Digital Matchprint produces a conventionally screened B1 proof and because of the substrates used and the imaging technology it is 100% stable. This will enable our clients to see credible proofs."

　　He adds: "We can produce 16 A4 proofed pages an hour on a system we know is reliable. It produces four separate colours, which are laminated on top of each other. The interest from clients has been phenomenal and I would not be surprised if we need to take a second system within a year. This type of proof takes away their uncertainty about moving to a digital workflow."

　　Creo is another well established name in the proofing business. At Ipex, it introduced the latest in its line of Iris inkjet technologies. Developed by the Iris team, the wholly new Veris engine places dots at a true

　　Symmetrical resolution of 1,500x1,500 dpi for seriously high quality proofing. With output files managed either within Prinergy or Brisque, colour accuracy is guaranteed to match the final print. Creo's colour management technology is common to all software within its workflow. However, the company chose not to add dot capabilities, even though the device is positioned as a contract proofer.

　　Increased confidence

　　Another interesting thing to come out at Ipex, was user interest in soft proofing. There seems to be an increased confidence in this, with more and more companies comfortable of approving pages based on their on-screen appearance.

　　RealTimeImage has developed a suite of collaborative web-based proofing solutions for remote soft and hard copy proofing. The company's core technology is called Pixel-On-Demand. Based on Internet streaming technology, it delivers a full resolution image data set via any digital network including the Internet. Streaming technology uses a network's full bandwidth to deliver data, instead of sending a file as a series of discreet data packets, so it is very quick.

　　However, this market is getting a little busier. Also at Ipex, workflow aficionado Dalim announced browser-based remote proofing and management options for its Twist workflow. Twist Dialogue is a streaming tool for viewing high resolution data via the web and not dissimilar to the RealTimeImage technology. It allows the user to zoom in on critical areas, annotate the page, take densitometer readings and check page output data. The idea is to ease collaborative and remote viewing and softproofing via the web. Using Twist Weblink as a remote access tool, users can interact with a Twist workflow.

　　The choice of proofing technology is no longer the lottery it once was, either in terms of technology investment or the risk involved for users. As printing economics have evolved for small and medium-sized printers, the risk of getting it wrong is much diminished.

　　Like so much else in prepress, for most print production applications proofing technology is becoming a non-issue: the technology is more than capable of doing what is required.

　　Of course, proofing will always be a problem of some sort for someone, somewhere. There will always be a customer that absolutely has to see accurate dot structures before approving the proof and where the risk of error is just not worth taking.

　　For this reason, Kodak will continue to sell Approvals and DuPont to sell Digital Cromalins and many of their users will continue to argue in favour of the technology.

[时间：2004-03-15  作者：Bisenet  来源：Bisenet]