We have all heard that print has left behind its ‘craft’ image to become a manufacturing process. Not very romantic, this notion of generating an assembly line of widgets, especially for the old hands of the industry. But in today’s market, it’s a given. And let’s face it, agencies and their clients have a right to expect reliability and consistency from print, exactly as if it were that assembly line of widgets.
Colour consistency across different types of presses and from job to job is certainly achievable. Bernd Utter, German-based product manager for Heidelberg’s Prinect workflow, reflects that it is possible to achieve optimum colour across various output devices, providing you are working within the same parameters – identical substrates, ink colour gamut and standardisation are primary considerations.
“As an example of how substrates can change ink colours, if you have a job that requires red to be printed on a white paper with a blue hue, you need to use the same paper across your devices to achieve accurate colour. This is crucial when you are printing corporate or brand colours in particular,” he tells ProPrint.
“In situations where you are printing corporate colours across a range of substrates, you need the flexibility of a press that enables you to change the ink colour gamut. This is possible with offset and flexo printing, but with digital inks there’s less flexibility.”
A colour standard
More than a half a decade ago, the process of predictably producing printed commercial colour came of age in Australia with the Australian TC130 committee adopting the AS/ISO 12647-2 version of the international ISO.
Work is proceeding on a digital-only ISO 15311 standard, but some in the industry, like On Demand’s Bruce Peddlesden, have claimed Process Standard Offset (PSO) certification for their digital output under Swiss-based international print colour organisation Ugra. Divided opinions linger over whether digital print can meet an offset colour standard.
To certify or not?
David Crowther, well known consultant with Colour Graphics Services (CGS), is a firm disciple of colour certification and has been certifying clients to ISO 12647 under the MellowColour banner for years. He believes it ensures quality, saves time and money, keeps print companies up-to-date and places them in the running to win print orders from bigger brands.
Colour consultant Jason Hall of CMYKit concurs. “Printers gain many benefits in becoming certified to ISO- 12647 including reduced makeready time and decreased losses from waste,” he says.
“There’s also the ability to offer customers a quality product that meets expectations. Printers need to ensure that the ISO integration offering they accept fits their budget and delivers results as promised. At CMYKit we pride ourselves in delivering on both.”
Fuji Xerox Fogra digital print expert Duncan Bray believes each colour consultant brings a unique set of skills. “Some have a background in offset, others digital and wide format. I’d recommend printers select a consultant who focuses on their area of concern,” he says.
“A good consultant should be able to define a repeatable process to achieve the best from your current equipment, make recommendations on possible enhancements and work with your business to give you the confidence that what you are producing is accurate.”
Bray observes that technically there is no such thing as a direct certification to ISO 12647-2; rather there are many types of certifications available in the marketplace, closely tied to software products or vendors. “At Fuji Xerox Australia, we follow the certification system Fogracert,” he says. He lists Offset Alpine Printing and SOS Print & Media as the only printers currently PSO-certified according to Fogra.
Utter points out printing to ISO 12647-2 is now de rigeur for corporate and government print buyers. He predicts that as the market continues to move in this direction, the requirement to become ISO 12647-2 certified will increase and the spoils will go to printers ahead of the curve. “Heidelberg has offered its ISO 12647-2 certification service since 2010 and we have certified 150 customers worldwide,” he says.
Quality control at the coalface
So let’s say your company has achieved certification – but how does it keep ticking the ISO 12647 boxes? Crowther sees quality control by on-press scanning systems for sheetfed and heatset web as a fast and easy way for a printer to check they are obtaining evenness of inking across the sheet and hitting target densities and colour values.
“At a minimum, a handheld densitometer should be used. Optimising colour across multiple print methods; offset, flexo, digital and wide format, requires a systematic approach,” he says. “I have done this with a few customers and it works out well. Printers still need to do a visual check and this is where D50 lighting for visual assessment is important. With print turnaround critical today, correct lighting that meets ISO 3664:2009 is imperative, whether at the press console, in prepress or at the output side of digital production or wide format devices.”
At CMYKit, Jason Hall has spent the past half-decade guiding printers to colour conformity. “Our customers have achieved the internationally recognised PSO certifications on both offset and digital devices – both toner A3-plus and large format,” he says. “There are also ISO 12647 standards for flexo, news, gravure and screen printing.”
Fuji Xerox software group marketing manager Peter Brittliff tells ProPrint: “It’s not just about the technology; that is, the press, the workflow, the software. Quality control plays a significant role as well. Maintaining components, processes such as the media, environment, maintenance, calibration and profiles is equally important. Printers must have the process and commitment to not only achieve a high-quality single print, but be able to consistently and accurately achieve it over an extended period.”
For example, at Sydney multimedia company mmw3degrees, Fuji Xerox’s Colour Managed Workflow Solution was installed, powered by Oris to take control of colour reproduction via Oris Press Matcher, Britliff says. Adam Moore of mmw3degrees says it has enabled colour accuracy and mirroring across multiple devices.
Bray observes: “Software products from CGS Oris are good at achieving accurate, repeatable colour from digital and some wide format printers, but it is not a one solution fits all scenario.”
Ricoh Australia production business development manager Mark Katrakis says Ricoh production devices, when configured with an EFI controller, utilise the profile management tools available. Coupled with the EFI Colour Profile Suite software, this allows for managing the disparate colour gamuts. In other words, it can profile the different devices to emulate the output so that it is matched to the parent device. Digital presses also have internal calibration systems which monitor colour consistency per sheet of operation.
Colour accuracy on outsourced jobs
What if you outsource some work? How carefully should you check the third party provider in terms of their colour credentials? After all, it is your own company’s reputation on the line.
Crowther reflects: “Maybe you are talking about a print company that has ISO 9001 (quality management systems) and ISO 12647 certification. Printers like this who outsource work should be looking to other trade printers who have the skills, knowledge and a structured systematic approach to producing print that meets these quality standards.
“They should be asking for colour QA reports (like PrintSpec reports) that can show the printed result compared to an ISO standard or any inhouse standard. In other words, evidence that the printed result meets the buyer’s colour and print quality requirements.”
Hall says it is a non-negotiable requirement if quality and consistency are paramount. “Printers can ensure this by being ISO 12647 certified and require that their suppliers are similarly accredited,” he says.
Bray says: “Printers can ask the third party to provide evidence of certification in conformity with the standards, and to provide a sample of a test print with elements typical of the work you do, that can be compared against known output, like a contract proof.”
According to Utter, the best way to ensure a specific colour standard is to work with a trade supplier to undertake continuous evaluations of the print quality. “Spectrophotometers are the easiest way for measuring the colour deviation independent of the print process and Heidelberg presses have used this technology for more than 20 years,” he says.
“Software such as Heidelberg’s Prinect Color Toolbox or Prinect Pressroom Manager enables easy monitoring of measured results.”
Katrakis advises that all work be proofed prior to final production. “This will at least place the brand integrity completely in the hands of the requestor.
In addition, using colour standards such as PMS and calibrating the devices will provide a mechanism for continuous colour matching to current industry standards.”
Investing in a colour ‘guru’?
Should you shell out your hard-earned for a colour print expert? Crowther emphasises that the ideal consultant should be independent of major suppliers of CtP, RIPs, plates, proofing systems, prepress, digital and print consumables. “The colour consultant can take a detailed and broad view of the whole end-to-end production flow,” he says.
“They should be able to advise and recommend what the printer needs to do to get the maximum out of the existing equipment and workflow. A good consultant will be able to impart skills and knowledge to the workers on the shop floor, to production managers and advise and report to the MD or CEO.”
Jason Hall at CMYKit agrees that it is worth the investment. “Customers should only work with consultants based on a fixed price and delivery of results,” he says. “Similarly, the colour journey is just that – a process. The level of colour accuracy, repeatability and process change necessary for one business will differ from another.”
Britliff emphasises that professional colour expertise is a must-have. “It is critical for printers to have a specialist map out the path to accurate, consistent colour,” he says. “Many vendors talk about hitting a particular colour, but at Fuji Xerox Australia, our Confident Colour Programme is a combination of technology: the digital press, the software to accurately profile or fingerprint presses, be it on-premise or in the cloud, education such as digital colour management certification, and expert consultation by our certified digital print experts.”
Bray says: “The role of the colour consultant is to offer advice or implement the best solution to achieve the best result from each output device.
“Printers can then measure test prints to ensure they are achieving their optimum quality on a daily basis, that can also show their compliance to the various standards; -2, -7, -8.”
Utter says grasping colour standardisation can be a bit like understanding legal text. “Keeping up-to-date can be time consuming and few companies can justify the investment in employing a permanent colour management specialist,” he says. “This is where the colour and standardisation consultant is really invaluable. Heidelberg’s Print Colour Management Service is designed to support print service providers, from SMEs to large concerns, both offset and digital print producers. Our consultants are highly educated experts whose practical expertise is backed by a sound theoretical understanding.”
Katrakis is convinced that vendors’ software has reduced the need for colour consultants. “In the early days of colour digital production, there was a growing requirement for a colour specialist,” he says. “However, as the tools have become more sophisticated, the onus has diversified to both workflow and software solutions. Within Ricoh we provide professional services to include colour management (beginner and advanced), digital design courses and software implementation.”
Colour quality at the bottom line
At McKellar Renown Press in Melbourne’s south eastern suburb of Carnegie, a decision was made some years ago to invest in colour certification to the ISO 12647 standard. The print company, with some 40 staff, specialises in high-end print and specialty DM campaigns.
The hybrid offset and digital commercial enterprise, which has been in operation since 1946, is a family-run operation. Co-general manager Chris Norgate is one of the latest generation to be involved in the print business.
McKellar Renown has achieved Fogra certification for digital printing and ISO/PSO for offset. Norgate says: “We needed to upgrade our colour management solution, and we needed to complement it with a digital solution that could stand beside our offset production, which could be rigorously measured, calibrated and monitored – otherwise it wouldn’t meet our standard. After all, we are trying to sell one standard of print.
“I believe we were one of the first, if not the first, to achieve ISO 12647-2 [offset] certification. As a result of Oris Press Matcher/ Web and our own colour management innovations, we are able to keep within delta 2.5 in our offset work. With an error margin of two between spectrophotometers. That means we have an average error of 0.5 delta above this threshold, which is barely perceivable by instruments.”
McKellar Renown invested in a Xerox Color 800 Press, but that was not where the story ended. The prepress department and the pressroom have cooperated in achieving calibration across all devices in McKellar Renown’s production workflow. “The great thing about the Epson proofer is the inline spectrophotometer, and being able to validate it to ISO 12647-7 [proofing],” Norgate says. “That’s the ability of the Epson proofer and the Oris colour management. So what we have now is the golden triangle of colour management. We are kicking to the same goalposts in offset, digital and proofing.”
Norgate says the company became attracted to digital after Fogra’s ISO compliance was extended to digital output devices. “It was only when the devices became Fogra capable, and they’d been made with standardisation in mind, that we started looking at them,” he says. “But, in truth, there was also the need to meet the demands of clients, who wanted the clear advantages of digital print, such as personalisation and short runs. The seed of the whole idea comes from market demand.”
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