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Recent News from Xerox
July 29, 2002

Professional-Quality Digital Color Proofing
Streamlines Content Creator Workflow

Now Creatives, Commercial Printers and Prepress Operators Can Produce Accurate Simulations of Matchprint Contract Proofs Throughout the Workflow

By Bob Wagner, Xerox Corporation

For all of the revolutionary, unsettling and beneficial changes that digital technologies have brought to the graphic arts, they have yet to dislodge the long-time color-proofing standard for offset printing. Halftone proofs remain the most widely accepted indicator of what to expect from an offset press.

Over the last decade or two, however, digital technologies have transformed many intermediate proofing steps that lead up to final halftone contract proofs. Concept and layout evaluations are now based on output from the same digital file used for final art, rather than from sketches. These comps are printed on thermal wax, dye sublimation, ink jet and, increasingly, color laser printers, whose image quality, speed and ever lowering cost of operation have made them the intermediate proofing technology of choice.

Now these digital output technologies are beginning to meet one of the great remaining proofing challenges - matching colors consistently enough to set customer expectations while evaluating a color design concept. A new solution built around the Xerox DocuColor 12 Printer by Xerox and Kodak Polychrome Graphics (KPG), providers of the industry's gold standard for contract proofing, KPG Matchprint™, now provides the fastest means to produce Matchprint contract proof simulations early in the design process. The result: an improved overall workflow that expands the color capabilities of designers, publishers, prepress shops and print providers.

How close is the match? "We compared outputs of high resolution files on the DocuColor 12, with and without a Matchprint server, to the press proofs of the same files," said Brad Mintz, senior vice president and manager of Graphic Services, McCann-Erickson New York. "The Doc 12 with the Matchprint system was within an impressively close range of the final press proof. Using the KPG-Xerox Color Laser Proofing Papers narrowed the gap between laser proof and press proof even further."

Cutting the Cost of Color Accuracy
No color reproduction system can reproduce the entire range of colors - also known as the color gamut - that the human eye detects. Rather, each color system has its own color gamut. Contract proofs are effective for client approval of color and as color press output benchmarks for press operators because they emulate the gamut of offset presses. However, they are costly - typically between $60 and $150 apiece - and take as long as several hours to produce. According to the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation (GATF), an average of nearly three contract proofs are required per job to get color right, adding time and costs.

The Xerox-KPG solution uses breakthrough laser printing technology to perform accurate and consistent digital color proofing much more quickly and at a much lower cost. Xerox contributes its DocuColor 12, which uses intermediate belt transfer technology for transferring color images to paper in one pass, improving image registration and color consistency, and permitting use of the heavier paper stocks required for professional-level proofing.

KPG designed the system's Matchprint Professional Server to work with the DocuColor 12 and to use patented Color Locking calibration technology - a simple three-step calibration process for maintaining consistent color on proofing and short-run color applications produced on any Xerox-KPG color printing solution in any location. Color management is provided using KPG's patented Color Fidelity Module and a selection of color targets that includes certified Matchprint Color Targets. A licensing agreement with PANTONE® contributes to optimum simulation of spot colors.

Specialized, Co-Branded KPG Matchprint/Xerox Color Laser Proofing Papers also contribute to color precision by meeting exacting KPG specifications for three proofing bases: commercial, publication and SuperWhite.

Short-Run Printing, Too
In addition to providing high-speed, reliable interim and validation proofing, the KPG-Xerox solution delivers short-run production capability that is not available with other proofing technologies.

Contract proofs remain the gold standard for color proofing of offset print jobs. But with professional-level digital proofing solutions like the one from KPG and Xerox, the steps leading up to contract proofing can now be more reliable, easier to perform and much less costly than ever before.

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Bob Wagner is vice president and general manager, Creative Services Business, Worldwide Graphic Arts Industry Business, Xerox Corporation. He can be reached at: robert.g.wagner@usa.xerox.com.