Consistent Colour
Device-Link Profiling
No More Production Proofs
The trouble is designers can only do so much. They’ve been creative with their use of colour, they know how to choose a profile. The job looks great on a screen and the job looks great on a proof … and then it all falls apart when it gets to the press.
Sure, you can run the jobs to see if they match the artwork. But that’s an expensive and time-consuming way to work. You’re wasting ink, media, and money every day. Heat, moisture, wear and tear, printer drift and ink and media variances will all have an impact on the finished results, too. However, with PrintFactory’s Editor tool and a calibrated monitor, what you see on screen is exactly what you’ll print on the press. No more production proofs. Imagine that.
Closed Loop Calibration
Perfect Profiles In *Minutes*
Our Calibrator turns the whole team into profile-ninjas. And our Editor will analyse the RGB and CMYK detail for you, to provide on-screen soft proofs you can trust 100%. PrintFactory’s Editor produces a soft proof that shows exactly what you’ll print, AND it gives you the option to make manual adjustments (if you really want to).
You don’t need to waste ink, media, or money, getting it wrong. Just check you’re happy with what’s on screen and send it to the RIP. What you see on screen now, is what you’ll print – wherever your print devices may be. Consistent colour is guaranteed. As are your savings, using up to 20% less ink.
No Need For Colour Corrections
“My colour experts were great, but they were always spending time retouching jobs. It doesn’t matter how good you are as a colour expert; all that colour correction work uses ink and wastes media. They were keen to get the best results for our customers, but even those extra minutes in front of a monitor were costing us money. That’s why I chose PrintFactory…”
Printfactory | Wide Format Workflow Software
We’re always chasing colour in this business. Multiple RIPs don’t make life easier. Then there are substrates to think about, plus variations in temperature, humidity, ink, and wear-and-tear…
Even if you could tackle all those problems one by one, ICC colour engines don’t always deliver a ‘closed loop’ of colour outputs on different printers.
Usually, you’ll use canned profiles supplied by the printer’s manufacturer or the media supplier. Or, if you know how, you’ll be making new profiles – taking 45 minutes or more. Either way, more test prints and more retouching means you’re wasting ink and media. Idle machines cost money and it all starts to add up. PrintFactory is the answer.
PrintFactory workflow software means no more productions proofs. Imagine that.
With PrintFactory’s Editor tool and a calibrated monitor, what you’re seeing on the screen is exactly what you’ll be printing on the press.
Our Editor tool analyses the RGB and CMYK and Spot colour detail for you and provides on-screen soft proofs you can trust 100%. Minimum productions proofs are a reality.
Let’s Get Technical
Device-link profiling is the key. Device-link profiles transform colour from one colour space to another automatically, with no manual intervention. We’ve built our workflow software to include 3-click wizards, which make it easy to create those profiles in minutes:
- The profiles can be locked (so there’s no ‘tinkering’ by the more enthusiastic members of your team)
- Profiles appear instantly, there’s no need to relink or reconfigure your printers because the profiles are all centrally managed and shared.
- Profiles will use between 15-20% less ink – with no degradation in quality – which is the icing on the cake.
What’s more, with the Calibrator running, you can be matching the calibration on different printers in around 10 to 20 mins. Our Delta-e tolerances are proofing quality from the outset – coming in at 2, or less.
This means you can load-balance with ease, putting confidence back into your business wherever your printers are located (locally or remotely). You can do repeat jobs with 100% confidence in the colour too; saving files as a template to use a few weeks or even months later.
Make Profiles Quickly
“We like to think of ourselves as a successful wide format printer. But every time the colour wasn’t quite what the customer wanted, everything had to stop until our colour expert was free to create new profiles. It takes ages to build new profiles. That extra time was eating into my profit margins – until we started using PrintFactory software…”
Printfactory | Wide Format Workflow Software
Many printers use the profiles that either came with a printer or were supplied by a media manufacturer. And, let’s be honest, those ‘canned’ profiles may do a reasonable job … just as long as you’re using exactly the right paper and ink, the right printer driver, and you’ve double-checked all the settings for which the profile was intended. But life’s not like that.
Even canned ICC profiles don’t account for these variables. And while ICCs are intended to be generic, there’s really no such thing. So, when you get your colour expert to create new, bespoke profiles for your unique set-up – taking that person off a job, putting someone else on it – you’re wasting time, it’s costing money, and everything comes to a halt. PrintFactory is the answer.
PrintFactory turns your whole workforce into a team of profile-ninjas.
Colour experts are worth their weight in gold. But with PrintFactory, you don’t need colour experts to be on hand all the time, to get perfect colour profiles.
Our workflow software turns your whole team into profile-ninjas. Anyone can create perfect new profiles in just 3 clicks and maintain the great work your colour experts have already done.
Let’s Get Technical
It’s all about choosing workflow software that uses device-link profiles, and has in-built wizards, making them easy for anyone to create. Device-link profiling transforms colour from one colour space to another.
In the simplest of terms, our device-link profiles ensure normalised printing: directly converting from one colour space to another. They don’t work through an intermediary area (CIE-Lab). Instead, they preserve colour separation through direct CMYK-to-CMYK conversions. Rather than being converted to CIE-Lab and back, this ‘normalised’ printing means that every channel’s values stay the same – ensuring consistency and accuracy. It all happens behind the scenes.
What’s more, because our software’s device-link profiles work on an iterative basis (as jobs are getting processed, the software chooses the right values to reflect exactly what’s happening with stock and substrate changes, environmental conditions, and even wear and tear) … you can be sure of printing exactly the same colour on every printer, every time. No extra costs involved.
Cut Down Your Production Proofs
“Just like any other outfit, we were more than used to the idea of productions proofs. It’s what you expect. Every large format printer thinks of productions proofs as being part of the game, but we were wasting gallons of ink and – literally – tons of media every year. That waste was eating into our profit margins, and we knew there had to be a better way. That’s why we went with PrintFactory…”
Printfactory | Wide Format Workflow Software
In your end-of-year accounts, you always add a line for bottom-line costs. However, very few wide format printers look at the cost of printing test files, or running productions proofs, and break it down into cost-of-ink, cost-of-substrate, cost-of-people. Is it 5% of the bill? Or 15%?
Either way, sometimes your team won’t trust what’s on a screen. They know your print devices better than that, and they still want to see what something looks like ‘in the hand’. Customers, too, sometimes want to know you’ve created a hard-proof, but that involves using ink, and media, and wear-and-tear on the machines (it does), and then there’s the additional cost of overtime, too, if the job doesn’t print right, first time. It all adds up. PrintFactory is the answer.
PrintFactory workflow software means no more productions proofs. Imagine that.
With PrintFactory’s Editor tool and a calibrated monitor, what you’re seeing on the screen is exactly what you’ll be printing on the press.
Our Editor tool analyses the RGB and CMYK and Spot colour detail for you and provides on-screen soft proofs you can trust 100%. Minimum productions proofs are a reality.
Let’s Get Technical
It’s all about choosing workflow software that uses device-link profiles, holds a two-way conversation with your workflow, and has in built wizards, making them easy for anyone to create. Device-link profiling transforms colour from one colour space to another.
In the simplest of terms, our device-link profiles ensure normalised printing: directly converting from one colour space to another. They don’t work through an intermediary area (CIE-Lab). Instead, they preserve colour separation through direct CMYK-to-CMYK conversions. Rather than being converted to CIE-Lab and back, this ‘normalised’ printing means that every channel’s values stay the same – ensuring consistency and accuracy.
It all happens behind the scenes. What’s more, because our software’s device-link profiles work on an iterative basis (as jobs are getting processed, the software chooses the right values to reflect exactly what’s happening with stock and substrate changes, environmental conditions, and even wear and tear) … you can be sure of printing the same colour on every printer, every time. No extra costs involved.
Everyone Can Create Colour Profiles Easily
Getting those device-link profiles set up is easy.
Our Calibrator turns your whole team into profile-ninjas. And as soon as those device-link profiles have been created, the result can be frozen into what we call ‘a golden state’ – so you can be 100% sure of producing the same quality and same colour across multiple printers, every time, even after a significant amount of time has passed.
The Right Kind of Support
You’ll like PrintFactory.
We do the hard work for you, no problem.
Need a demo?
We’ll get one of our local dealers to contact you.
Become a Partner
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