Robert Banbury wrote
From a publishing/production point of view it is
encouraging to see the
increasing amount of dialogue and attention paid to ISO 12647-2 in recent
months.
Like Bob Marchant, I am also a member of a couple of the UK PPA's technical
committees which are putting a great deal of time and effort in to providing
clear information on best practice under international guidelines.
From The Economist's London offices we send files to seven print sites around
the world. All four european sites are attempting and in some cases achieving
ISO 12647 standards.
Without a common international standard we are in an impossible position of
having to profile every one of our sites, all of whom use at least 3 presses
for our sections. Standardisation is the only way to achieve consistency in
proofing and output.
Any ideas would be welcome though on how we approach quality control and
monitoring at those remaining sites who adhere to SWOP standards [ie the US
and Singapore] ?
Hi Robert
This is an interesting area. As you state the only correct way is a standard
printing condition for all printing sites to follow.
If the US and Far East printing sites must use SWOP (must they?), a way
needs to be investigated within the tight production schedules under which a
publication such as your operates to change the images to the SWOP specs.
I am guessing that you produce PDF files, either with an embedded or assumed
ISO profile workflow. Or do you use PDF X1a with an ISO based outputintent?
Also I would suggest that a colour managed workflow and clearly stated
policy is in-place.
So if you have time the CMYK or RGB images need to be converted to the SWOP
profile, and the PDF's re made for these sites. This is probably not an
option and would not deal with ads supplied as PDF.
A better way may be to use a tool such as Alwans CMYK Optimiser which uses
device link profiles to process images in PDF's from one CMYK destination
profile to another, in your case, your chosen ISO profile to SWOP, very
quickly and accurately. And this would deal with the issue of ads in PDF.
There are other software's that can do this job.
The only issue at present is that if you are using PDF X1a the software will
change the images, but not the outputintent, not an issues if the printers
rips are set not to recognise PDF X outputintents, but if they are!!!!!
Regards
Paul Sherfield
The Missing Horse Consultancy Ltd
Telephone: 01442 871752
Mobile: 07899 906385