With digital printing now firmly positioned in the mainstream, shouldn’t it be guided by the same kind of colour standards that govern offset? The short answer is that it’s horses for courses.
Colour managing low-end flyers for letterboxing – whether digital or offset – might not be a wise investment. But printing to standard for high-end digital brochures could mean the difference between a repeat order or a competitor eating your lunch.
Right now, there is no digital print standard. While that may soon change, digital printers can act by trying to match to the colour standard for offset printing. In last month’s issue, ProPrint profiled Jagar Sprinting, a Sydney printer that had done just that. Jagar’s ISO 12647 badge was helped along thanks to three organisations: consultancy CMYKit, Ugra (the Swiss Centre of Competence for Media and Print Technology) and GASAA, which acts as Ugra’s exclusive audit body in Australia and New Zealand.
They are offering Production Standards Offset (PSO) certification to ISO 12647-2, the version of the standard for sheetfed offset. PSO is claimed to allow digital printers to promise the same colour quality as their ISO 12647-certified offset counterparts (though not everyone agrees, but more on that later). To date, eight digital printers worldwide have achieved this particular Ugra certification.
But beside this workaround, is there going to be a tried-and-true standard for digital colour printing? It’s coming, but slowly. David Bowman, branch manager at IPMG subsidiary Sinnott Bros Alexandria, reflects that digital print covers a vast array of devices, from toner-based to water-based inkjet, and oil-based ink machines. “The ISO will need to take into consideration all the capabilities and limitations of all these varied printers when defining the criteria of the standard.”
Sinnott Bros is a member of the ‘3DAP’ committee. The Digital Data Delivery
for Australian Publications arose to meet “the needs of a totally digital production environment for the magazine publishing industry”.
Bowman says he has seen first-hand the types of issues arising when submissions pass the criteria of the standard, but cannot be maintained in the field due to the inability of the device to maintain consistency. “Having said that, there has been a vast improvement in technologies associated with the latest digital devices.”
Sinnott Bros may be best know for its roots in advertising repro, but like many pre-press houses, it operates a commercial digital business, which is thriving. Bowman is a firm believer in digital colour management. “In our business model, colour management in our digital print department is essential.
“We have consistently produced high-quality, repeatable results since implementing a colour-managed workflow. A client can be shown a proof and have confidence that we can reproduce this proof accurately on our press. The colour management processes are an absorbed cost and not reflected in our pricing. The ability to achieve quality results and ensure ongoing business is well worth the small investment in time and software, given the fact we have the necessary colour management expertise in-house to research and implement our own processes.”
Sinnott Bros operates an ISO 12647 colour management approach on its HP Indigo 3500. With no official digital print standard available, it aims to align as closely as possible with 12647-7 for proofing.
Bowman outlines how this works. Firstly, Sinnott Bros has implemented a combination of its own Centracolour workflow and third-party software. This provides a self-implementation of ISO 12647 and generates accurate information to set up and maintain the standard consistently. The 3500 is measured daily and calibrated if necessary to maintain the standard.
The second part of the colour management process takes place in file processing before going to press. Sinnott Bros uses custom software to assign a known colour space to PDFs, then uses Device Link profiles when it converts the files into one of its custom press profiles. These were created for a variety of paper stocks once the press was ‘characterised’. The result is that the 3500 receives consistent, colour-managed files to suit the different stocks required.
Bowman says: “Sinnott Bros’ business has a strong emphasis on colour expertise and all colour management systems are researched, implemented and controlled from within, which gives us a distinct advantage over most digital print facilities. Having internal colour management expertise also enables us to assist and advise clients on the correct colour management processes further downstream in photography, and in design and pre-press, to produce accurate files for print.”
Sparks fly
Bruce Peddlesden, managing director of Melbourne digital business On Demand, gets hot under the collar about talk of separate digital colour management. He is adamant there is no such beast, and says ISO 12647-2 should not be labelled “offset” but should be a standard across the technologies. “As Jagar Sprinting with the iGen4 and ourselves with the Indigos have proven, we can meet the standards that already exist with digital devices.”
Yet sparks flew early last year when On Demand announced it has received Australia’s first PSO certification for digital output. Certain colour integrators in Australia, including ColourProcess managing director Yves Roussange and Kayell Australia managing director Rob Gatto, disputed the validity of On Demand’s claim. PSO is technically an offset standard. While in one sense this is an argument over semantics, it raised a broader issue – under what standard can digital print be certified today?
“The purists that insist that 12647 PSO is only for offset are trying to protect their turf from the upstart digital brigade,” says Peddlesden. “Surely the whole idea of the standard is to ensure colour consistency and accuracy in print, irrespective of the device that it was printed on?”
As already mentioned, On Demand led the way for other local digital printers to follow suit. In May 2009, Sydney-based Look Print secured ISO 12647, making it the country’s first large-format printer to do so. In July this year came the aforementioned standard at Jagar, which became the world’s first to achieve PSO colour certification to ISO 12647-2 on a Xerox iGen4.
On Demand, Jagar and Look Print all turned to colour consultancy CMYKit to certify their digital print under Swiss body Ugra, a rival to better known German association Fogra.
One rule for all
CMYKit founder Jason Hall takes the view that until a dedicated digital print standard is released, there can logically only be one certification: ISO 12647-2.
“How you bring digital and offset devices to that standard may be a different story, but it doesn’t take away the fact that there can really only be a single standard. After all, when you’re dividing a job across processes – say, 100 copies on digital, followed by a volume run on offset – the appearance has to be identical. The transition from digital to offset in such cases, which are very common nowadays, needs to be seamless and transparent.”
DES national technical manager David Crowther says it is already possible to get a digital colour device to simulate ISO 12647-2 for a suitable paper type – such as paper type 1 (Gloss Coated), paper type 2 (Matt Coated) or paper type 4 (Uncoated or Offset paper).
There is actually the possibility of a fully fledged digital standard: ISO 15311. Although early in development, 15311 already presents the scope for more controversy. Proponents of a separate digital standard are divided over which standard to develop. ISO 15311 is likely to be based on ISO 12647-7 for proofing.
But ISO 15311 was little more than a memo at an ISO committee meeting in St Gallen, Switzerland as recently as April. Ugra managing director Erwin Widmer estimates that ISO 15311 will be published in about three to five years. “The new thing is that they want to define a lot of visual parameters, which until now are not described in any standard. Until this standard has some flesh at the bone, Ugra will certify digital printing with ISO 12647-2,” says Widmer.
In the meantime, digital ‘validation printing standard’ ISO 12647-8 is in development and will be launched early next year. Roussange, who is a member of Fogra’s digital working group, expects ISO 12647-8 to debut commercially at Drupa 2012. He believes the standard deserves serious attention from digital printers. In developing ISO 12647-8, the Fogra digital group “would like to see a process for digital that is more about validation, about monitoring the press, unlike the certify-and-match approach taken for offset colour management”.
But validation’s critics deride it as a ‘Clayton’s proof’. Unlike a proof that conforms to 12647-7, it cannot be used as the basis of a contract. Sceptics describe validation as little more than a check
sheet that can be shown to agencies to prove a digital device can output to minimal standards.
Hall says: “It’s certainly good for design agencies, but it’s not a production spec, and that makes a lot of difference.” Back at Drupa 2008, some digital kit vendors were claiming Fogra accreditation to ISO 12647-8, but Hall argues this was little more than box ticking.
Luke Wooldridge, LIA committee member and Kayell print specialist, is the new chair of the Australian TC 130 committee. He recently took over from the PIAA chief executive Philip Andersen in a rotating agreement between the two associations, which jointly back the Australian committee. Wooldridge is an advocate of ISO 15311 and explains that it will consist of several parts: parameters and measurement methods, commercial and production printing, and large-format printing.
DES been helping Australian print businesses towards colour certification for more than seven year. It has the local agency for Mellow Colour’s PrintSpec tool. UK-based Mellow Colour has a register of “ISO 12647 Proficient Printers” – a group of around 100 companies that have implemented PrintSpec. Local members of the club include Complete Colour Printing, Finsbury Green,
Geon and Vega Press.
Crowther has worked with some 40 printers in Australia and New Zealand. He says that one of DES’s standout ISO 12647-2 implementations was Scott Print in Perth (see box).
GMG and Kayell have several tools specifically developed to both control and check the quality of printed copies, says Wooldridge. GMG ColorServer will automatically re-separate files to ensure accurate colour representation across a variety of presses and media types. It is useful for signage companies and large-format printers, but also for traditional clients such as design and pre-press companies. GMG RapidCheck software can be used to check the quality of the final printed product and will automatically compare the result to a pre-defined standard, whether that is an ISO or custom in-house standard.
ColourProcess has created PSD-Check (Process Standard Digital), based on ISO 12647. “PSD-Check is a quality control process to monitor and certify digital print engines [toner-based and HP Indigo] to meet the standard. It includes colour management solutions, calibration and monitoring tools to keep the digital engine stable and in spec,” says Roussange.
Digital hardware vendors also have a serious stake in making sure their machines are up to quality standards. Many are getting in on the act by offering printers some standardisation with their kit purchase. Konica Minolta’s Color Care package certifies printers to the validation standard across the Bizhub PRO C6501 series engines, says national manager, production print Chris Stamoulis. “The Color Care package is designed to ensure the Konica Minolta press is maintained at an internal quality standard. This gives the printer confidence that their device maintains consistency from job to job and day to day.”
Canon’s ImagePress C1+ 6000 and 7000 series is capable of achieving ISO 12647-7 CD FograCert Colour Validation as an option. Will Parker, manager of applied technology at Canon Australia, says Eye-One Process Control allows profiling of stocks and validation of prints to Canon and FograCert standards, as part of the ImagePress colour solutions.
“We offer training and assist customers with the proper management of the colour settings in the EFI Fiery PIPS or Creo Colour servers. This is based on sound implementation of practical standards based on the ISO 12647-2- specification- but not necessarily validating to it,” says Parker.
Case Study – Scott Print
Scott Print is a 30-year-old company with four US Benny Awards to its name, not to mention a clutch of local awards. DES helped bring the printer’s Heidelberg offset workflow up to standard via the Mellow Colour PrintSpec system.
It also offers extensive digital printing services, including short on-demand runs and personalisation. Proofing at Scott Print is to ISO 12647-7 through its ORIS contract proofing and MatchPrint RIPs. But the company is not yet colour managing its digital production print.
Pre-press manager Keith Scrivens says colour standards presently don’t appear to be an issue in its digital-only work. “It’s only when you’re running a job offset as well as digital that matching becomes a priority,” he says. This is where Scott Print will take its first digital colour management steps, perhaps as early as next year.
Aside from its litho fleet, a five-colour and a six-colour Speedmaster XL, Scott Print runs two Xerox 8000s and is about to add a 1000 to assist with its broad range of digital production work, mainly in the 320x450mm format. Scrivens says that colour management is not a step to be taken lightly. It represents a major cost factor in hardware, software and human resources.
He is familiar with ISO 15311 and ISO 12647-8 but says the jury is still out over which, if any, of these approaches will be considered.
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