Was it a colour managed drupa?

Well, yes, it was in many ways. Of course, it was called the ‘inkjet drupa’ and, for the first time, printers could actually buy a production B2 inkjet press, such as Fujifilm’s JetPress 720. While there were many other production digital B2 inkjet presses launched, most will not be available for at least 18 months to two years.

So, to the main interest for me at drupa. What was happening in the world of colour management? It may be good to reflect on the progress of colour management and colour-managed workflows.

Some also called it the ‘cloud drupa’, and in the colour management area there were many solutions ‘in the cloud’ using the ‘SAAS’ software as a service model.

The ICC (International Color Consortium) specifications for colour management have been in place for 17 years and have seen continuous development from the early days, when users had to be very knowledgeable and skilled to use it, to the present; as drupa showed, it is a developed technology that controls colour in every area of the graphic arts workflow.

The challenge now is to automate and integrate ICC colour management across workflows and output devices. The use of many differing methods of printing, both what may be termed conventional and many digital devices, make the use of colour management to control a common colour appearance critical.

Why is this an important area?

Many promotions and brands will increasingly use many of these differing methods of printing – offset litho, small-format digital, both toner-based and now inkjet, wide-format inkjet in its myriad of sizes, inks and media – within one campaign.

 These devices all have a different ‘native’ gamut or colour space, so have the capability, in relation to the well-known ‘ISO coated v2’ CMYK profile, to print more or, very occasionally, fewer colours.

But the client needs to see what us colour geeks term as a ‘common colour appearance’ for all their printed materials. Brand colours and images must be the same on all printed materials.

Therefore one of the areas I looked into at drupa was the automation of colour management within workflows to control the colour when printing the same brand colours and images to the many differing output devices.

 There were a number of companies offering software solutions for this issue. They ranged from digital proofing rip vendors developing into this area to smaller standalone software and solutions from the larger workflow companies that integrate into their current workflow systems. Three of these systems are based on the same third-party software, which has now been purchased by the largest of these companies. The future development and availability of this software could now be in doubt for other vendors.

One of the most complete and flexible was Fujifilm’s XMF ColorPath Sync cloud-based solution, which can accessed from within their XMF workflow using the XMF ColorPath Organiser tool or as a stand-alone solution.

XMF ColorPath was first shown this year at the Fespa Digital show in Barcelona. The first version is based on using 1D TVI curves (dot gain compensation curves) to control the colour appearance of offset litho, screen process and wide-format inkjet presses.

This, of course, implies that the inks used must be to the CIE Lab values needed for the printing condition, in this case ISO 12647/2. So, for the screen process and wide-format inkjet areas, Fujifilm supply their Pro-File brand of screen process and UV inkjet inks to this standard.

 For offset litho, such inks are readily available to ISO 2864/2 to meet the values of this standard.

Being cloud-based, the system is accessed on any computer using a web browser. The pricing is based on the number of printing devices used and the number of printing conditions used by each printing device.

This makes the costs affordable to the smallest printing companies.

 A number of the most common spectrophotometers can be used with this software, including the ubiquitous X Rite iOnePro. They are automatically recognised by the software when connected.

XMF ColorPath uses a number of standard colour bars. These are printed using the device to be calibrated to ISO 12647 and read using the software and spectrophotometer. This information is then automatically processed by the software, providing a report on compliance to ISO 12647/2 printing conditions.

If the CMYK primaries are correct, the TVI correction curves are generated and can be automatically applied to the Fujifilm XMF workflow using the XMF ColorPath Organiser tool.

XMF ColorPath Organiser offers a new set of colour management configuration tools that are included in a new module within XMF Workflow V5. This module manages the application of colour profiles within the workflows.

Otherwise, the data can be exported to many third-party rips and wide-format workflows.

 Using the software in this way, with the correct ‘ISO’ inks on all output devices, offset litho, screen process and wide-format inkjet, ensures a common colour appearance across all processes. So a cross-media campaign using many printing methods will match both to the proofs and to the client’s expectations.

Well, so far so good?

 What about printing and devices that cannot use inks that ‘match’ the ‘ISO’ values? The vast array of digital printing devices, small-format, B3 and now B2 and above, covering many print markets: short-run colour, packaging, labels, books, transactional…

What about matching colour appearance over the other parts of the ISO 12647 standard, parts 2-6? This is all covered by the second version of XMF ColorPath, first shown at drupa and to be finally released at Graph Expo 2012 in Chicago in September.

This retains the existing features and the same pricing and cloud-based model as the first release and adds ICC-based device link profiling and standard ICC profile creation to the 1D TVI curve correction.

So printing devices that cannot use CMYK inks, pigments and toners that match the ISO 12647 CIE Lab’s requirements can be controlled to an ISO 12647 colour appearance using a device link profiles.

Indeed, the printer and their client are not confined to ISO 12647: non-standard printing conditions based on specialised processes, inks and substrates can be measured, controlled and verified using XMF ColorPath.

The software is used in the same way. A colour chart, an ECI 2002 or IT8, is printed, measured by the software and, in the case of a device link profile being required, the XMF ColorPath software needs to know the required printing standard, ISO or a ‘house standard’, and a device link profile is automatically made.

 This function is based on Fujifilm’s own colour profiling software. Ink saving for wide format ink jet and other printing methods are now becoming a common feature of colour management software’s. XMF ColorPath uses a simple menu to offer ‘light’, ‘medium’ and ‘heavy’ levels of ink savings for the output profile in the device link profile. This is based on differing levels of GCR (grey component replacement) so is part of the profile rather then just an undefined sliding scale.

 An ‘expert’ level of functionally is available in the software for advanced users. This offers control over areas such as GCR, black channel creation, rendering intents and TAC percentage for those that need control of these areas.

Again, if using the XMF workflow and ColorPath Organiser to control printing devices, this profile can be automatically loaded and associated to the correct workflow, device and printing condition. In production, the XMF ColorPath software can be used to verify sheets to the standard printing condition used and a production report generated showing compliance.

 Also, using XMF ColorPath to produce ICC profiles will enable printers to use the maximum colour gamut of a printing device, ink set and substrate in a colour-managed workflow when required. This is especially useful for the professional photography and fine art arts markets.

 XMF ColorPath is a flexible colour management workflow tool, cloud-based so upgrades are automatic, with a pricing model that makes it affordable to the smallest printer and technology that the largest printer cannot ignore.

 It enables the printer to control to a common colour appearance across many printing devices, based on any number of ISO 12647 or bespoke printing conditions.

This is what the market and the printer clients are increasingly demanding for campaigns printed using differing technologies and substrates.