Streamlined Ink Jet Proofing And Fewer Consumables

GMG USA, the US office of GMG, developers and marketers of colour management and proofing solutions, have installed Colorproof software at Macy's East and Macy's West.

GMG USA, the US office of GMG, developers and marketers of colour management and proofing solutions, have installed Colorproof software at Macy's East and Macy's West.

The software is driving Epson 10600 digital proofers to replicate the colour and dot patterns found on press.

Digital workflow integrator Rods and Cones, part of the colour management distribution group of resellers, was responsible for the implementation of the system at Macy's West, while Zenplex installed a similar system at Macy's East.

Although both purchase decisions were made independently of each other, they were initiated by the same motivating factors said GMG.

Macy's East and West operate what are believed to be two of the largest corporate pre-press departments in the USA.

Macy's West, handling most of Federated's pre-press work west of the Mississippi river (including Hawaii and Guam), produces 7,000 printed pages per year.

Macy's East's employees support all of Macy's catalogues and mailers, including different versions for most geographic areas east of the Mississippi river.

It also do work for other Federated companies, such as Burdines.

Ultimately, both groups send either rasterized TIFF-IT or PDF/X-1a digital files to their printers.

Both departments' searches for a new inkjet-based proofing system were similarly motivated: the desire to reduce consumables costs, the ability to proof on a wider variety of media such as newsprint and the need to reduce proofing time.

Because Macy's produces many images of clothing, it needed a proofing system that can faithfully fingerprint the halftone dot pattern found on press.

By using GMG's Dotproof, Macy's is able to detect moir? patterns - caused by the interference of fabric textures with line screens - at the proofing stage, before they turn up on press.

While saving money and time were driving forces, Macy's was also clear that there could be no sacrifice in quality.

To that end, Rods and Cones built custom calibrations and profiles for every paper used with the Epson printer, as well as reference profiles for several printing presses Macy's prints to most frequently.

Using GMG's profiling tools for colour correction and paper simulation, they created proofs that accurately match the press with a colour match superior to that of the previous traditional proofing methods.

Similarly, Zenplex achieved press-matched proofs for Macy's East's catalogues and mailers while using GMG's spot colour editor to precisely match Pantone spot colours and printed results.

"At first I was a bit sceptical about Colorproof's ability to match our other digital proofer's quality, but the cost savings were so compelling I decided to give it a try.

This was an incredible breakthrough for us.

Rods and Cones did a great job.

Our two Epson 10600 printers, which we purchased for flexibility, backup, simulate our presses even more effectively than our high-end digital dot proofing system.

We've reduced our consumables costs by over 80 per cent and we've been able to use our Epson printers for in-house poster printing as well," commented Frank Windgassen, manager of pre-press and colour reproductions at Macy's West.

Lee Paciello, Macy's colour analyst, reviews proofs for Macy's East direct mail catalogues for colour accuracy and retouching, as well as creating profiles for the Epson 10600 to match to Macy's various printers.

Paciello was closely involved in the decision process to select Colorproof.

He was pleased with the software's ability to match the final printed piece and the ease of creating and adjusting profiles when necessary.

"Production speed and cost effectiveness without sacrificing quality is what makes this proofing system so remarkable", explained Paciello.

Diane Gogates, digital technical operations manager for Macy's East pre-press division is meticulous about matching proofs to presses and automating workflow.

She said: "After extensive research of all inkjet proofing systems, Colorproof is the only device that let us match the exact screen angles and algorithms reproduced on most industry platesetters.

The software accepts screened tiff files generated from any digital front end RIP station, and applies precise colour to the one-bit tiff screen.

This was a key factor in our decision, because our main goal is to match the press.".

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