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X-Rite technologies fuse industry developments and its color expertise with printer and prepress requirements.
GRANDVILLE, MI-X-Rite has long been a printers' partner when it comes to the development of color management technologies that are easier to use and that address the unique needs of the commercial printing market.
In an interview with PRINTING IMPRESSIONS, X-Rite Worldwide Product Marketing Manager lain Trevor Pike discusses the hurdles surrounding color management adoption, as well as his vision for where color management technology is headed.
PI What would you say is
the biggest hurdle in the adoption of color management within printing companies?
Pike: It seems like one of the biggest stumbling blocks is that the technology can be difficult to use. Even pronouncing some of the words can be difficult-like spectrophotometer, for instance. So at X-Rite we have an eye towards making color management products that are easier to use, and that consider the unique needs of printing companies. For instance, Spectrofiler 2 has already won one industry innovation award, because it represents a brand new approach that minimizes the effort involved in creating color management profiles.
We talked to dozens of printers and found that one of the biggest obstacles in supporting color management is that it typically requires a special test run or target to be printed. Printing companies realize that these types of jobs are costly in terms of press time, labor and materials.
What many vendors of color management solutions simply do not consider, is that while printing test targets on a digital proofing system or a desktop proofer is not a big deal, printing them on an offset press can be a costly, unwelcome task.
Spectrofiler 2 relies on a miniaturized test image that's used to create an ICC profile. It is reduced to the size of an ordinary color bar, making every job on-press a potential place to gather color management information. Press manufacturer Komori has adopted X-Rite's Spectrofiler technology in order to provide a simpler, non-disruptive approach to accurate color management of the printing and proofing process.
In this case, color can be managed to get demonstrated print-to-proof matching in 30 press sheets.
PI: You mentioned that color management can be complicated. What role does...