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Volume 5, Issue 1 Proof
Positive
A proof is supposed to be your assurance of color fidelity — what you expect your final product will look like. But not all proofing systems are created equal. Of the scores of proofing options available, only a few are up to the challenge of representing heatset web color accurately. Many others show placement only, and cannot be color-matched on press, leading to disappointment and frustration if you’re expecting your final product to correspond. The problem is not a new one. That’s why, in the mid-1970s, a group of concerned industry experts met and drafted the Specifications for Web Offset Publications (SWOP), which offer guidelines for color proofs, as well as for such things as electronic file preparation and web press specifications. However, SWOP is more than just an industry standard. Publishers supplying files for print (that means YOU) are required to comply with the SWOP guidelines—including supplying approved color proofs—or risk disappointment when ink meets paper. Seeing is Deceiving Back in the days of film and bluelines, customers requested (and many printers required) SWOP-approved proofs for covers, advertisements and all color-critical editorial. As more of the process became digital, printers like United Litho were able to supply color inkjet proofs (e.g., the HP proofs that United Litho supplies) in place of bluelines. The benefits were numerous: quicker turnaround times, the elimination of film-stripping errors and cost control, to name a few. Unfortunately, because the proofs were in color, they led many customers to believe that those colors could be matched on press. According to Chris Azbill, vice president of operations for United Litho, this is not correct. “The HP proof is a digital inkjet proof that was meant to be a replacement for the blueline,” he says. “Many of our customers accept it as a color proof, but it’s imperative for them to realize that we can’t match those HPs for color on press. The color space that can be created by heatset web reproduction and the color space created by the HP proof don’t match one another exactly.” So, the bottom line is: If you want the best possible color match on press, you need to supply or request a SWOP-approved proof. There are seven SWOP-approved proofing methods:
Better Safe than Sorry United Litho takes the SWOP protocol very seriously, especially when it comes to color proofs. All its systems—from prepress to print—are designed to meet SWOP standards. Therefore, it cannot match color on proofs that are not SWOP-approved, and that don’t use a SWOP color space. Unfortunately, Azbill estimates that non-SWOP-approved materials account for as many as 90 percent of the “proofs” supplied. To help combat the misconceptions, United Litho’s proofers will put stickers on your HP proof letting you know which pages did not come with an acceptable color proof. You can then request that ULI output PolaProofs of the pages in question. A single-page PolaProof is a bargain when you consider the ad and subscription dollars at risk. By declining to provide or request a SWOP proof, you accept the risk of any color variation. As Azbill explains, the ideal situation would be to have a SWOP-approved proof for every color page. “Essentially, when clients supply a SWOP-approved proof, they are putting us on notice,” he says. “They are saying, ‘You have an obligation to match this.’ We don’t see that as a burden. We are dedicated to giving them ink on paper that’s going to make them happy, their advertisers happy and their readers happy—but we need their help to do that.” There’s no need to play dangerous games with your magazine’s color. You can know reliably how covers, ads and editorial will print—before the files even leave your hands. The only difference between delight and disappointment is knowing what’s right in front of your eyes. In order to ensure the optimal outcome, United Litho has the following recommendations: ONE: Request that United Litho supply SWOP-approved proofs for all your color-critical editorial pages. “Color-critical” can include such items as:
TWO: Let your advertisers know about SWOP and request that they follow the proofing guidelines. You can direct them to the SWOP web site at www.swop.org for more information. THREE: Put disclaimer information in your rate card, advertising contracts and SRDS listings letting advertisers know that non-SWOP-approved proofs will not be color-matched on press. FOUR: Know your own
tolerance for color variance. As ULI Prepress Production Manager JoAnne
Bland puts it, “Color is so subjective. SWOP takes all the subjectivity
away. If you want to know what shade, hue or tone something is going to
be, have a SWOP-approved FIVE: Communication is vital. If advertisers supply SWOP proofs to you, or if you have them made for color pages, share them with us! We don’t know what to match if the proof is sitting back on your desk. Destination
Known Since December, ULI has been transferring the cumbersome, time-consuming hand-processing phase to the experts, and it’s been a “win-win-win” relationship for Spring, United Litho and ULI’s publishers ever since, says Peter Stelnyk, a regional sales manager at Spring. The biggest benefit is to the United Litho customer, who is seeing a dramatic improvement in delivery time. Mailing to Canadian and foreign locations previously involved loads of in-house hand-work and then transfer—typically by boat—via the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). By contrast, Spring—one of the world’s largest mail consolidators—picks up the magazines at ULI daily, transfers them that night to its processing facility in New York and sends them out through JFK Airport no later than the following morning. At the time of pick-up from ULI, Spring also secures either actual labels or an electronic file for the labeling data, or ULI can post that data to Spring’s FTP site. Speedy Delivery This new process has decreased delivery time of foreign mail, and Canadian material hits the Canadian Post as soon as one day after it leaves ULI. “We’re virtually reducing transit time by half,” says Stelnyk. While Spring relies on couriers and airplanes—rather than boats—to transfer ULI’s titles, Stelnyk describes Spring’s offering as a “stem-to-stern” package. The international mail house has assumed all phases of this process, from list management, packaging and labeling to postage and distribution. And, because it can merge ULI’s material into the mailstream with its other customers, Spring can offer these services at highly competitive prices. In addition, using a privatized firm such as Spring protects ULI’s clients from the USPS postage increases that took effect January 13, and others being considered for the near future. Plus, Spring polywraps every magazine with a carrier sheet, so there is no need for costly pre-printed envelopes, which were previously supplied by the publisher and inventoried by ULI. With these savings and more, ULI expects that nearly all its publishers will realize some level of annual cost savings. ULI Vice President of Operations Chris Azbill explains that the partnership with Spring is resulting in magazines arriving faster and in better condition—and at the same price or cheaper, especially given the recent postal increase. “It’s seamless for the publisher,” he says. The only change ULI’s clients can expect is a slightly different entry on their invoices, Azbill explains. And even that is simplified. Only four line items appear on invoices for Canadian and foreign mail, and they are listed per piece and per pound each for Canadian and foreign copies, making this process much easier to break down and track. In addition, customers no longer will have to front foreign postage to the USPS. Seamless Service Finally, Azbill assures customers who use the services of BPA International that ULI will “continue to supply them with documentation that can pass a BPA audit.” BPA International is an independent, not-for-profit auditing organization, whose services include verification of a publication’s circulation numbers to advertisers. Azbill confirms that ULI will provide a Spring-stamped “statement of mailing” document as official documentation for a BPA audit. The 60 to 70 percent of ULI’s customers who are dropping foreign and Canadian mail already are lauding the benefits. For example, LNG Publishing, which produces Lubes ’n’ Greases, one of ULI’s titles, already was using Spring independently of United Litho. “When I did my competitive analysis of mail companies, TNT [now Spring] was the least expensive and very reliable,” says Debby Wessmiller, circulation manager for LNG. Previously, however, Wessmiller would process labels for her 1,200 copies going overseas through United Litho. “Now [since ULI’s partnership with Spring], I send the labels directly to [Spring] and eliminate the intermediate person,” she says. With Spring’s roots in handling publication mailings, there is automatically a good synergy between the two firms. “It’s a partnership that allows us to leverage our respective core competencies,” says Stelnyk. Indeed, the value to the publisher will continue to surpass the traditional services. Additional Spring offerings include inserts/outserts, address data management and even an international reply service. ULI will retain domestic mail in-house and continue to offer its high level of service for those mailings. With all this and more, United Litho is ensuring that all its mailing methods remain “first class.” An Extraordinary Service Experience: Heldref Publications Washington-area magazine publisher Heldref Publications wanted to transfer a number of its titles to a digital workflow environment. The four publications, which range in content from an enthusiasts’ magazine for rock collectors to an educational publication about the weather, and in print run from 7,000 to 30,000 copies per issue, presented some special challenges. “We’d been working without a contract, on a month-to month basis for close to a year,” explains Heldref Production Manager Richard Pepple. “United Litho met all the qualifications I was looking for.” Tops among those qualifications was the ability to take Heldref’s titles direct to plate. “I was very excited about making the change because one of my main goals was to move into a computer-to-plate workflow,” says Pepple. “I felt we had the skill level and staff to take on the added responsibilities of computer to plate.” And take it on they did, rapidly transferring their operations with the help of United Litho’s team. “ULI has been very open to addressing our concerns and integrating our processes into their workflow, so disruption for us was minimized,” Pepple says. “We moved quickly to set up meetings and discuss everything before we began production of the first issue. ”Another major component of the transfer was ULI’s ability to handle the magazines’ scanning, which can amount to as many as 70 separate scans per issue. Heldref had previously used a separate pre-press shop to handle such scans, but now ULI has taken control of the entire process. With shorter turnaround times and improved quality, the publications are seeing the benefits, too—which makes Heldref’s customers happy. Pepple credits ULI’s state-of-the-art equipment with the success. “Our magazines are important to us,” he says. “The printing looks great—and that’s reflective of United Litho’s technology.” TechTips: Will the Real PANTONE 239 Please Show Up? Want to see something interesting? Go grab your Pantone “solid to process” book and look up the proper CMYK build for PANTONE 239. If you have a book more than a year old, you’ll see that the build is 18C 94M. The newest books and prepress software, however, are going to tell you that it’s 11C and 79M. When printed, these colors obviously do not look the same! What gives? In May of 2000, Pantone “silently” introduced new editions of its colors. The major changes are brighter paper stocks, a matte-coated edition and 147 new colors. As a result of these changes, new four-color process values for PANTONE simulations were required, as well as RGB data for the new colors. But the end result is a lot of confusion. A designer trying to achieve a specific spot color via a Pantone number and swatch may be disappointed with the color reproduction if the wrong CMYK builds were used when printing. Perhaps even worse, an older Illustrator/EPS file may be picked up and re-used in a file with the same color name but newer values. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to this—you simply need to be very aware of which set of numbers are being used in your files. FlightCheck, the widely used preflighting software, offers one way to potentially detect this scenario: check the “Mismatched Colors” box to be alerted when the CMYK values of a color referenced in an EPS image do not match the CMYK values of a similarly named color specified within the document or application’s color palette. PDF Workflow Update We recently discovered an issue with PDF workflows when a graphic is saved with “PostScript Color Management” turned on. This can be done in Photoshop 5.5 when saving a graphic as an EPS file. When this happens, the graphic is converted to L*A*B* color upon distilling, and will result in an unwanted color shift when plates are made. Nobody wants that to happen! I’ve created a customized FlightCheck ground controls file to use on PDF files to look for this, and it's available for download here. Now, how about some good news? We can now accept PDFs that are placed directly into Quark documents. That is, it’s not necessary to save PDFs as EPS files before placing into Quark. If your laser printer has a problem printing your pages, though, you may want to continue re-saving to EPS files to alleviate any compatibility issues.
Copyright 1997 - 2009, United Litho, Inc. All rights reserved. |
