printing
Print publishing is not dead in a cross-media publishing era; far from it. A growing number of publishers are finding their way to Print-on-Demand services, even for magazines and journals.
With Enfocus having released Pitstop Pro 08, Markzware intensively marketing FlightCheck Pro and firms like Zevrix almost contstantly updating their preflighting applications and plug-ins, preflighting documents seems like an absolute necessity. Preflighting is done to prepare a document for printing. It rarely serves any other purpose, and even the very shallow and basic preflight functionality that comes standard with InDesign is aimed at ensuring all elements to print correctly are embedded in the file. Preflighting is rarely ever done for output to the web, unless that output is a PDF file that somehow will end up on a printing press --digital or not.
Peter Camps, Sr. Vice-President Enfocus brand, commented on the EskoArtwork acquisition of Gradual Software. The SWITCH family of products is being merged into EskoArtwork’s Enfocus operations. The resulting new entity is operating as a dedicated business unit within the EskoArtwork group, under the Enfocus brand.
In an exclusive interview, Peter Camps shared with us his vision of where SWITCH will be heading.
Has it been two years now that LightScribe promised its user base the possibility to print --silkscreen-- onto coloured disc media? I believe so. A couple of weeks ago Verbatim released the first coloured LightScribe 1.2.x discs. Besides the gold coloured discs, you can now “Lightscribe” onto red, orange, green, yellow and blue-green media.
IMI Europe announced that on Wednesday 7 until Friday 9 November 2007, in the Sheraton Lisboa Hotel & Spa, Lisbon, Portugal, the European Ink Jet Conference will take place. VP’s, Directors, Business Development Managers, Sales Managers, Project Managers, and Engineers from Europe, Asia and North America are already registered for this event.
Alwan Color Expertise and Bodoni Systems Ltd. are utilizing IFRA to showcase their combined solution ensuring fast makereadies, increased stability, ink savings, and ISO-12647 standard output. The integrated offering features Alwan’s CMYK Optimizer version 3 and Bodoni pressSIGN.
Commercial photographers and large photo studios need to be able to manage their printing workflow and set up colour profiles that manage ink limiting and basically control the printer’s inks individually. ProofMaster 3.x is a Raster Image Processor (RIP) that does this and more. It is said to be the best RIP available, and we tested it for you.
Printing photos is hard enough these days with colour management that has to be taken care of, a choice of printing technologies that dazzles even the most experienced photographer, and the risk of investing into the wrong equipment. Uwe Steinmueller and Juergen Gulbins have jointly written a guide for photographers and publishers RockyNook have released this book to the public through O’Reilly.
Steinmueller is a well-known photographer and writer on the subject, while Gulbins is more broadly interested and brings his experience in desktop publishing, digital photography to the book. The result is a reference guide for professional and serious amateur photographers who wish to print their work with knowledge and using the best possible technologies.
Polestar Wheatons, specialists in the production of academic journals, directories and catalogues, has strengthened its standing as a full print service provider (PSP) with the installation of an HP Indigo press 5000. The press will enable the company to offer its customers short-run printing and a print on demand service – solutions to combat ever-decreasing run lengths and a need for cost-effective, low-volume printing.
The new press will be utilised through the alliance of Wheatons and Polestar Direct as part of the new Polestar Applied Solutions division. The new division will serve as a consolidated point of contact for Polestar’s complete range of services, integrating and expanding software solutions, digital printing, print management and direct mail. Polestar Wheatons’ HP Indigo press 5000 will provide a focal point in this division producing a diverse range of products from a single press.
Ever wondered how much ink a regular printer driver of a photo or large format inkjet printer throws on the page? With the environment increasingly being a crucial factor in our decision-making, you should. Given a photo inkjet with the four colours Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (light hues included), the answer to that question is: as much as the paper will absorb.
EFI announced plans to integrate Adobe PDF Print Engine into its next-generation Fiery System Software. Upon integration completion, Fiery technology customers will be able to output Portable Document Format (PDF) files with greater accuracy of rendering (i.e. transparencies), faster processing, and improved consistency with Adobe desktop applications, resulting in greater efficiencies that lead to improved profits for EFI customers.
Fiery customers, particularly graphic arts professionals, commercial printers, and pre-press companies in hybrid offset/digital environments, deploying the Adobe PDF Print Engine will benefit from greater compatibility between Adobe Acrobat and Fiery RIPing (raster image processor) capabilities. Also, device-independent workflows will be enhanced via seamless JDF (Job Definition Format) integration and common technologies in the PDF Print Engine and Adobe Creative Suite.
AlwanColorHub is a centralised interface for the Alwan CMYK Optimizer Server, the Profile Processor and the Contone Proofer, and contains the Queue Manager and Job Manager. AlwanColorHub further delivers a statistics view of CMYK optimisation and Ink Consumption. These managers fit in a colour workflow that is especially useful for printers and everybody else who has to deliver CMYK files and make sure the minimum amount of ink is consumed.
AlwanColorHub manages proofing, CMYK optimising, and processing ICC profiles. It does this through reference printing conditions. The CMYK Optimizer Server is an ICC based tool for preflight standardisation, colour management, and dynamic correction of colour separation parameters that may impact the printability of files. The ICC profile tool creates standard ICC based colour conversions.
Philippe Barrer Business Manager, Inkjet & Colour Solutions at Kodak wrote a short piece on some practical tips to adopt when looking for Wide Format Media. I’ve re-formatted his list of tips and am publishing it here without changes.
If quality and performance is important to you, never select a wide-format media on price alone. Going for the cheapest available, regardless of your application needs, is like playing Russian Roulette and will eventually lead to loss of trade.
Ensure you select the right media that suits the needs of the particular application. Compromise here and you almost certainly risk unpleasant surprises later.
Check your supplier’s website for additional information that will provide a useful aid in selecting the appropriate media. Proactive suppliers will offer media compatibility charts and selector tools that suggest certain media according to your application needs and printer manufacturer/model.
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