"Errors can be expensive and colour predictability is critical," said graphic arts business unit director Michael Farkas. "Users rely on ColorProof as the quality reference in contract proofing. Many of the new features respond to requests for greater performance and usability.

"You will not only find quicker start up and job creating times, but user interface improvements with a new manual job manager. Customers working with packaging will benefit from enhanced handling of white ink and transparent areas when proofing on foil."

Farkas said ColorProof tools helped users find a much sharper dot and accurate colour. A significant feature is an automatic alert because ColorProof often works unattended, printing jobs from hot folders without manual interaction.

"But there are times when attention is needed, for example to load paper, calibrate a printer, or fix a job error. This system now alerts you when attention is needed. This can save hours: if an error is not recognised, jobs will be queued and a company might miss deadlines.

He said ColorProof, which costs from £2,340, had undergone an extensive rebuild to improve user interface speed. The required time to create a new job from selecting the file until ready to print had been more than halved and start-up time is reduced from 45 seconds to 10 seconds.

A database view tool meanwhile offers colour-related information such as proof standards and spot colours, while a separate view provides configuration settings.

"Customers would like to archive settings for future reference or to configure the same job again," Farkas explained. "So GMG ColorProof now provides a save-job-report feature containing all relevant job information and image settings."

Other new features for packaging jobs and prototypes include white-profiling to ensure transparent areas of white channels stay transparent. The cutting option for Roland printers has also been improved with 10 preconfigured presets for special blade and media settings.