Product of the Week: Alwan/X-Rite Print Standardizer

The Alwan/X-Rite could be an increasingly attractive option as colour control gains importance and finance becomes harder to come by

According to Alwan Color Expertise's Elie Khoury, controlling colour on-press is key to controlling costs. And Alwan's latest product, Print Standardizer, which was developed in partnership with X-Rite, does just that. The package takes the firm's core colour management competence beyond pre-press and into the press hall to make it easier to manage the processes needed to maintain ISO 12647 compliance, speed up makeready and reduce reprints.

Khoury describes the function of Print Standardizer as: "Making the press look right. It's an ISO 12647 certification and compliance toolbox."

The Print Standardizer package combines Alwan's Dynamic DeviceLink technology for ICC based separation control, an X-Rite Intellitrax press-side sheet scanning spectrophotometer, with a database to store readings and settings. Readings from the Intellitrax are stored and managed by the database along with job details such as press, target colourspace, paper stock and printing conditions.

One function of the product is to analyse the colour data from an individual job to check and record whether it met the ISO specification. For printers who want to prove that their production can be rated as ISO 12647-compliant, Khoury says the combination of a robust and automated spectrophotometer with the software provides the necessary tool to simplify and streamline the measuring, analysing and recording of data regardless of what approach they take to proving compliance.

"We can guarantee that if Print Standardizer says work is compliant it can be Ugra, Fogra or UKAS certified," he says.

Strings to its bow
The second string to Print Standardizer's bow is making sure that the print produced can not only hit the standard by producing the right LAB values for the solid colours, but that the results match proofs and conform to the target colour space by ensuring that the correct dot gain curve is used to get the tints right too.

"Today, printers using on-press control systems can have jobs that pass the closed-loop system's requirement of matching solid density, but they don't look right because of dot gain differences," he says.

Getting on top of dot gain can be a real hassle. There can be mountains of data to measure and decipher. Khoury says that he found that at one French beta customer, manually measuring sheets and applying the dot gain corrections to the RIP curves was in itself a full-time job. Many firms will find themselves stuck in a tight corner where customers increasingly demand evidence of colour compliance, while at the same time prices are falling, making it hard to cover the cost of employing someone to keep on top of colour.

Knockout blow
This is where Print Standardizer claims to deliver its knockout blow. By collecting data during jobs using the Intellitrax, the package has got mountains of data to work from. It uses patent-pending algorithms in the software to sift out readings that are spurious, which would normally take a skilled operator to interpret and weed out. But in automating the data collection it needs to ensure it's very accurate as the next step is to use that data to dynamically correct the curves prior to plate making. Users who are cautious about this approach can opt to manually output RIP curves for use in Kodak, Screen, Harlequin and other RIPS.

However, if you want to go the whole-hog with automation Print Standardizer uses Alwan's Dynamic DeviceLink technology to automatically adjust dot gain curves to ensure the separations optimise the tints produced on press based on the colour space you're aiming to hit and the combination of a particular press and paper using the latest data about how the press is performing.

No other vendor is approaching this degree of automation. Several of them say that's because automatically correcting dot gain may mask mechanical problems on press. Others can see the merit of the automated approach but also agree that you need to have good housekeeping and a grip on the printing conditions before you can reap the benefits of automating measurement and dot gain compensation.

Khoury sees Print Standardizer as the missing link in the move to standardise and automate colour reproduction. It follows hot on the heels of Alwan's joint venture with Enfocus called PDF Standardizer. PDF Standardizer uses Enfocus' PitStop PDF pre-flighting package and its Switch workflow automation glue with Alwan's CMYK Optimizer software to produce a package that can pre-flight PDF files for colour as well as other attributes.

While a lot of attention is focused on controlling the CMYK process colours for ISO accreditation Print Standardizer includes the Pantone Goe library, so can manage spot colours too.

Alwan claims that Print Standardizer can save 10 minutes and 200 waste sheets per makeready. Price is £33,000 for a package including the 40in (B1) Intellitrax measuring system, Pantone Goe library and Print Standardizer software. A software-only package is available for £12,800 for those who already have X-Rite. Currently the software only works with the Intellitrax system, although Khoury is considering opening it up to other press measuring systems.

Increasingly attractive
For the majority of presses, which don't have an on-press or on-console spectrophotometer the Intellitrax is a lower cost option to ink-zone by ink-zone measurement and adjustment, which could prove increasingly attractive as colour control becomes more critical and raising funding on big bits of new kit remains tricky. However, at more than £30,000 it's still a substantial sum. Khoury argues against using the handheld X-Rite i1 for taking readings, arguing that the Intellitrax is a more robust measuring device better suited to a pressroom environment and particularly for repeated reading.

Print Standardizer is an interesting approach to automating colour calibration, control and compliance. Its cost-saving claims make it worth investigating. Even if it isn't possible to get to ‘lights out' colour control just yet, anyone involved in the complicated process of keeping on top of colour will welcome the potential to switch their lights off and go home a little earlier than they do today
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SPECIFICATIONS

Type Automated system for ISO 12647 compliance
Functions On press measurement and control of colour to match ISO 12647 print conditions, statistical analysis of print conditions and automatic dot gain correction
Components Alwan Print Standardizer software, Pantone Goe library, X-Rite Intellitrax scanning spectrophotometer, training and installation
Price £33,000 including the X-Rite Intellitrax Software only £12,800 (needs an X-Rite Intellitrax)
Contact Alwan Color Expertise UK 07545 592 013 www.alwancolor.com; X-Rite UK 01625 871100
www.xrite.com
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THE ALTERNATIVES

Bodoni PressSign 2.5
New features on the recently upgraded version extend PressSign from process control into the terrain of press control. The target colour space can be an imported ICC profile and an optional extended plastic ruler turns the X-Rite i1 into an extremely cost-effective press-side scanning spectrophotometer.
Price PressSign £1,495, PressSign Pro £2,495
Contact Bodoni Systems 01923 220530
www.presssign.com

Heidelberg Prinect Colour Toolbox 3.5
The product performs various colour control functions including ICC profiling, DeviceLink profiles, calibration, colour trend analysis and ISO 12647 compliance. It takes data from third party spectrophotometers as well as Heidelberg’s Image Control and Axis Control scanning spectrophotometers.
Price £4,000
Contact Heidelberg UK 020 8490 3500
www.heidelberg.com

Mellow Colour PrintSpec
PrintSpec was one of the first tools for measuring print performance and in particular against ISO 12647. The focus of PrintSpec and sister products RetroSpec, for trend analysis, and InkSpec, for spot colours, is quality control and press performance diagnosis rather than automatic control. Mellow Colour argues its approach ensures underlying press issues are identified and fixed early rather than being masked until they become bigger issues.
Price PrintSpec £1,950, RetroSpec £900, InkSpec £900
Contact Mellow Colour 01386 421534
www.mellowcolour.com

Targetcolour Mypressxpert
Launching soon, mypressxpert builds on Germinate Press Signature product. It’s a web service rather than a software package, offering print compliance analysis and statistical process control including identifying and fixing print problems. The service is based on a database containing thousands of readings as well as instant access to colour, pre-press and printing experts for remote diagnostics.
Price £200 per month per sheetfed press and £400 per month per web offset press
Contact Targetcolour 01372 822830
www.mypressxpert.com

GMG PrintControl
PrintControl is GMG’s print process control package. ISO 12647-2 and -3 are supported out of the box, and custom configurations can be created using a profile editor. Solids and tints can be measured including grey balance analysis and RIP curve corrections are automatically created. Sister product RapidCheck provides daily analysis of density, tone value increase, trapping and gamut.
Price £1,500
Contact GMG UK 01603 821010
www.gmgcolor.com