The 122-year-old company needed to update its ageing Screen Trueflow workflow because customers were beginning to experience problems sending files through, said Guildhall’s production manager Matt Course.
The new system, which cost less than £10,000 and was installed by Prepress UK at the end of November, had boosted production speeds immediately, Course added.
“It allows us to pre-flight files that come in from our customers. We used to spend an awful lot of time examining customer files manually – they can send all sorts of interesting things these days,” he said.
“Then files go on to production and StudioRIP takes over. The improved speed of production through StudioRIP has probably been the most obvious improvement: faster plate production and faster printing of proofs.
“Prepress UK also helped us sort out profiles for our presses. We are now producing plates for each specific press and getting significantly more consistent colour printing as a result.”
The 15-staff company runs a five-colour Heidleberg Speedmaster SM 52, a two-colour GTO and a two-colour Roland press with profiles based on ISO 12647-2 colour standards, which according to Course, “points us very much in the right direction for the future”.
“Customers are not speaking to us right now about ISO 12647-2, but I have a feeling that they will be doing in the not too distant future,” he added.
Prepress UK technical manager Andrew Aldridge said the workflow upgrade had made production far more efficient for the £1m-turnover business.
“The Trueflow workflow product was struggling with the current versions of PDF files, particularly transparency, and didn’t provide any imposition or integrated proofing. We proposed the StudioRIP Workflow package and added the Enfocus PitStop Pro pre-flighting and file correction plugins as, like so many printers today, Guildhall is receiving less than perfect PDF files from customers.
“With a few clicks they automatically correct common file problems, such as re-mapping colours, converting RGB, fixing font issues, adding missing trim-marks, and correcting page sizes, as well as getting detailed reports on files as soon as they receive them. All in all, it is a huge time saver.”
