Proofyourself: A New Color Management System (I)

Christinger Partner is a printing company with 11 large format and large format printing equipment in Schlieren, Switzerland. It recently found a satisfactory professional color management solution.

The product called Proofyourself was introduced by another Swiss company, Mayerthaler. The price advantage of this product is very obvious.

As the largest large-format printing company in Switzerland, Christinger Partner always calibrates each printing machine and needs to maintain different color profiles (using different substrates for different materials). Therefore, each printer will have a different characteristic description file, and when this file is sent to a different printer, the colors cannot be matched. In this way, we can't guarantee that we can print a color effect that is consistent with the customer's proofs.

Christinger resolved these issues in January 2005. During the Christmas and New Year period, the company installed the Proofyourself system, which consists of a PC server equipped with Proofyourself software and a Canon W2200 proofer. He connected the server to Christinger's internal network. After two hours of training for each employee, the system was officially put into use. Most of Christinger's devices have a characterization file (generated by GretagMacbeth's Profilemaker) that can also be used in the Proofyourself system.

Proofyourself workflow software can generate standardized PDF/X-3 files from open file formats or submitted PDF files and output proofs. These files were examined, optimized, and interpreted by RIP, and finally the proofs were generated on the Canon W2200 proofer. This pattern can be used to check to see if RIP has been explained in every place and whether the color matches the submitted worksheet. On the output side, the RIP-interpreted data can be sent to any large format printing device. Corresponding feature description files will also be linked to this file to ensure that the final printing effect is consistent with the proofs. Because of Christinger's large format devices - a Seiko 64s, a Roland Permasol, an Arizona 180, an Océ Belize, an HP 5000, an HP 5500, and two Grand Angel XXLs. Because of its own characterization of different substrates, the company's printing on all presses looks exactly the same. Understanding how this system works and the other benefits of the Proofyourself workflow are necessary for the entire system to function properly.

Proofyourself system

Proofyourself was originally a proofing system developed for a professional design department. Designers used the system to convert their files (generated by Illustrator, InDesign, QuarkXPress, PageMaker, and similar software) into professional-quality PDF/X-3 files and Contract proofing. Since users are not very proficient in prepress technology, Mayerthaler also provided them with a monitoring system consisting of a PC equipped with Proofyourself software and a Canon W2200 proofer. The proofer has been calibrated and characterized so that test specimens conforming to the ISO 12647 standard can be produced under four printing conditions. The four conditions are: sheet-fed offset (coated and non-coated), web offset (only for non-coated paper) and newsprint. Any operation can make these printing presses conform to ISO standards, so that their printed products can exactly match those proofs without any problems.

This process is also very suitable for the needs of publishing houses, publishers need to personally create their pages and send these pages to the printer. Therefore, in order to complete Proofyourself Creative, Mayerthaler has developed a new version for prepress and printing companies: Proofyourself CL20 for 20 output devices and Proofyourself CL60 for 60 output devices.

Typical production sequence. The steps for this product are as follows: Create a PDF file, check for optimized files, make proofs, and perform normalization. All the functions in this workflow software can be implemented with standard software developed by various developers. These softwares have been added to an automated sequence by Mayerthaler. Including: Adobe's Acrobat and Distiller, Enfocus's Pitstop, Quite's PDF suite software and Harlequin's RIP with color management capabilities.

This workflow starts with the creation of an automatic and reliable PDF/X-3 file, which is based on the submitted PDF files and other "open" file formats. Since almost all application software can generate PDF files by itself, PDF files also lose the “standardization” feature that only Adobe software can generate PDF files. Now you can encounter PDF files of different quality, different languages, and different rasterization features, just like Postscript faces. Proofyourself can be used to process such files as "clean (standard)" PDF files, rebuilding a security level. Use Adobe Acrobat Preflight software to detect all issues, including color-related issues, resolution, font conflicts, very thin lines, and compliance with the PDF/X-3 protocol.

(to be continued)