Color/Quality Control - Software

How successful service providers are implementing the right tools to deliver consistent color according to industry standards.

Recognizing that digital printing has become a mainstream technology, offset printers are increasingly adding digital capabilities to their repertoire of offerings. In some shops, short-run jobs are run entirely on digital presses. Some do short-runs on a digital device and a longer runs of the same job on a offset machine. Others combine variable content digital pages with those from an offset press in the same job.

In each case, colors have to match and the overall look and feel of the document must meet customers' requirements with minimal differences. This webinar will discuss how printers are successfully using the best features of both technologies AND managing color across offset and digital presses.
 
Our expert panelists will share their experiences on such key issues as:

• Ensuring jobs run on different devices look the same
• Managing paper selections
• Setting customer expectations
• Color management tools and profiles used for success
• Managing color for logos and other branding requirements

Sabine’s out-of-town client, a very sophisticated direct marketing agency, had examined the press okay process, jettisoned accepted assumptions, and along the way demolished the model entirely. Air travel, hotels, loupe, D50 lighting, heck, even dots. Who needs any of it?

In the in-depth, three-part “IdeasOnline Webinar” series—titled “G7 Process Control Webinar: A Roadmap to Efficiency & Predictability”—print providers will discover the process and benefits of standardizing their print production workflows. All sessions are from 2-3 p.m. Eastern Time.

Thank you, The Wall Street Journal. You did me and a whole lot of other production managers a huge favor today with your printing foul-up. Every couple of years, it seems, I have to talk an editor out of going along with a designer’s proposal to jazz up a publication by getting rid of boring old black body type in articles. “Ooh, purple would look nice.”

The Journal printed a graphic showing Pinterest postings intended to inspire innovation among General Electric employees. The Pinterest captions use colored body type, which is fine for the web but looked like mud when printed

The ‘Process Colour Standardisation’ report is a guide to better understand and use standardized process printing and workflow optimization. PrintCity project members have shared their combined competencies to help implement standardization, plus improve quality, consistency and productivity in offset printing.

The Color Management Conference, to be held Dec. 3–6, 2011, in Phoenix, will feature a keynote presentation from Axel Kling, senior packaging graphics quality manager, The Coca-Cola Co. Kling will address the importance of color consistency for a consumer product company and delve into how Coca-Cola communicates the brand message company-wide and the crucial role color management plays in ensuring the company’s long-term, sustainable growth and market share.

The task that color management sets out to achieve is by no means easy. Recently at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), I completed a color management systems course and afterwards took on the challenge of color managing a weekly magazine.

Just mention the term G7 certification and you can hear a collective cringe coming from the folks at IDEAlliance, the printing industry association unofficially tasked with governing printing methodologies, specifications and standards. G7 is a “qualification” program; the law sees a difference between the terms. IDEAlliance is working on a certification program.

Edison Lithographing & Printing Corp. (North Bergen, NJ), founded over 50 years ago, has built its reputation on doing more than paying lip service to quality and customer service. “We act on it,” says CEO George Gross. “Edison is not afraid of change, and we understand the need to be constantly moving forward. G7 has enabled us to provide our customers with the highest possible quality while not impeding our quick turnaround.”

The company implemented the G7 method in May 2007. “We already had two KBAs, and while we felt this state-of-the-art machinery provided excellent color, we wanted