There are some surprisingly down-to-earth things that you can do to get in control of your colour reproduction.
One of the first things to do is to identify what the most common problems are, what causes them and what can be done to address them.
“In most cases I’d say that one quarter of problems are with the files supplied, another quarter is the choice of the substrate and half the problems are with on-press process control,” says GMG UK managing director Toby Burnett.
If Burnett is correct and the biggest source of problems are on-press then that’s a good place to start looking for quick wins in the quest for better colour.
“There are still printers measuring by eye and densitometer – they don’t trust the tools,” says Heidelberg head of colour services Paul Chamberlain. “I can understand their reluctance, in 2004 the firm I was a printer at bought on-press colour control. I couldn’t believe that a machine could be better than me.
“Only two of us initially bought into the technology. We were soon more productive and producing less waste. Once the benefits became clearer, the other minders got on board.”
For Chamberlain the important thing to remember is how to sell it to the people operating the equipment.
“Use it as a way to take the heat off,” he suggests. “For minders it’s a way to get into colour within your allocated waste sheets – you know you can’t send a job on short, and no one likes going back to the production manager to ask for more sheets to makeready. That’s the buy-in for the minders.
“Ultimately it’s about saving sheets – and therefore time and money. It’s about showing them that these tools make their lives easier. It’s one less thing to worry about.”
If you do go down the route of on-press colour control – and it’s now pretty much a standard feature on presses of B2 and above with 98% of Heidelberg press installs now including a device of some sort – it’s important to maximise the return on investment by ensuring your staff are trained to make the most of the technology. That takes time, and should be considered an ongoing process rather than a one-off bit of training.
“When I first learned to use on-press controls it started with three days training on-site, then I was left for a week, then there was follow-up training,” says Chamberlain. “Then it went on like that, picking up a bit more over time. It’s a good way of training and I’ve adopted the same process myself. Walk before you can run.
“You need to take it in stages; don’t try to do it all at once. The skills come over time. I thought I knew a lot when I left the trade and joined Heidelberg as a demonstrator – it’s been dripped into me over time. I’ve been here eight years now and I’m still learning.”
An example of a firm finding the adoption of on-press controls transformational is Gloucestershire-based Vale Press. Last April the firm moved up from B3 to B2, installing its first press with colour control, a five-colour Heidelberg SX 74 with Easy Control.
“We used to find it hard to keep colour consistent across the sheet, jobs and substrates,” says managing director Tom Stowe. “The SX was our first foray into B2 and I couldn’t imagine making the move without colour control. Now we’re getting 150 sheet makereadies, whereas before it was 500-600 sheets. The investment in the colour technology has easily paid for itself within the first year in paper savings alone, which are about £5,000 per month.”
Stowe has also taken the decision to let Heidelberg look after the firm’s colour set-up rather than doing it all itself.
“They’re the experts, so we leave it to them,” he says. “We could do it ourselves but it would mean investing a lot of time. We might save a few quid [doing it ourselves] but if we lost a few thousand having to do a reprint it seems a false economy. “
So what about the other causes of colour confusion once you’ve sorted out any problems in the press hall?
“A lot of the problems stem from customers selecting substrates then supplying proofs that don’t match, which means that there is a disconnect between what printers are asked to produce versus what they are supplied,” says Burnett. “All the players in the supply chain want to fix colour and avoid finger pointing but it’s often seen as being the responsibility of someone else.”
One of the ways to address that is training. Informal colour training can be found online by those with the desire to find it and many of the vendors of colour, pre-press and printing technology have materials available.
Sometimes it’s better to go back to school and do a course, and even when it comes to helping clients learn about colour, maybe even running one if you’re up to and up for it.
“In my experience educating the clients can be very positive,” says Paul Sherfield, managing director of colour consultancy The Missing Horse. However, that depends on them being happy to learn and likely to take on board the lessons.
If you’re not, there are courses available; with the vendors increasingly realising education is an important part of their service offering. Sherfield offers introductory colour management courses starting from £100 per person while GMG is launching colour workshops for designers. Burnett describes them as gentle introductions to colour to help them help themselves.
Sometimes though the nature of the work doesn’t lend itself to training your clients. For instance if the orders are small and the customers unlikely to become regular it may not be cost-effective. Likewise if they don’t have the skills necessary to implement their own colour management it may be pointless in offering training. In those situations there is another approach.
“For the printer the choices are to educate and assist clients or install colour server software,” says Sherfield. If you consider that a colour server costs around £6,000 – that’s a lot of training. But if you or they don’t have the time or the inclination then that’s where colour servers do come in.”
Colour servers like GMG’s ColorServer can be used to take incoming PDF files and to reprocess the colour separations to match the desired printing conditions of the press and the paper used. They use clever file analysis and colour management to account for and correct any errors in the original set up of the files. This can be invaluable for helping out less experienced customers.
Alas the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow just a myth. However, like most myths, there’s a grain of truth in it. It’s a useful metaphor that illuminates that the route to good colour reproduction is long and may never have an ending, fairy tale or otherwise. Nor will there be a pot of gold but there are definitely benefits, including financial savings from going on a colour quest.
TOP TIPS
Consider the cold hard cash savings. Reducing makeready waste can save thousands of pound per month
Treat implementing colour management as a journey not a destination
Don’t attempt to do everything at once. Assess your situation and then plan to implement colour management in stages
Work out what the source of each problem is and tackle them separately focusing on supplied files, substrates and pressroom process control
Training is important. Lead on practical training based on doing some theoretical training to back up the how with some why
Sell the benefits to your staff. Make sure they understand how colour management can benefit them
Build on operators’ existing colour skills working with density and dot gain adding in spectral data as an additional tool to make their lives easier on press
Engage your clients and offer them training too – it can be a good marketing tool as well as helping to reduce production problems
If your client base and work mix aren’t suited to training look at colour server software as a way to automatically fix common colour problems without adding to their or your workload
When investing in new kit and software make sure the vendors provide proper training so your staff can make the most of the new tools
Phase the training over several months to drip-feed information rather than drowning users in too much too quickly
