Pic4press was launched with a 16pp best practice guidelines document, providing clear information on handling digital images.

"The object is to demystify supply and handling and increase confidence in digital images this area has been surrounded by smoke and mirrors for too long," said FE Burman head of IT and project management Andy Psarianos. "What we are working on primarily is predictability."

Separately, version five of pass4press means it is now mandatory to use PDF/X1a for conformance, with the standard also aligned with Ghent's PDF workgroup for global acceptance.

The PPA has also teamed up with Vio Worldwide and Markzware to offer a pass4press online preflighting option. This has been trialled by 15 publishers and has now gone live. Vio will run a series of training seminars for publishers and advertisers next year.

One of the debates at the conference centred on whether publishers should bring repro in-house, with almost 60% of the audience saying they expected to do so within two years. However, Emap group production director Andy Franks noted: "Does it matter if it's in-house, in Bow or in Phnom Penh? It's no longer about in or out, it's about good workflow versus bad workflow."

l Fresh Media Group subsidiary Colour Systems is working on a strategic initiative with St Ives to open up its JDF pre-press workflow to the printer. "St Ives is a big receiver of Colour Systems PDFs, and we're talking about ways to make life easier for us and our clients," said chief executive Les Pipe.

Story by Jo Francis