Color Managed Soft proofing Work flow

[slehning]

We are looking into putting together a Color managed Soft Proof work flow with one of our customers that are out of state.
They will be providing us a mixed bag of tricks, so to speak, of images in a variety of color spaces.
Some images will be RGB some will be CMYK with a variety of color profiles already embedded.

The request is for us to be their asset and color managers for a few thousand images. The other request is to be able to get the same color consistent results from other printers as we supply to them.

We have a game plan in place to make this happen. The question is which soft proofing work flow to use without breaking the bank. Our first thought was to basically use Photoshop and Acrobat Professional.

We would save out the images as PDFs which would then allow the customer to call up the images on a stand alone work station we would set up, calibrate, and train them on using. Through Acrobat, using the GRACoL 2006 ICC profile in the output preview they would view and critique the images and annotate the corrections back to us with the annotation tools. Also in Acrobat you can create a conference session to go over corrections as well.

That is our thoughts for the tools we have on hand. Just looking for some feed back as to if any one else is doing this. Also looking for some feed back what others are using to view color accurate soft proofs with customers, and how is the back and forth communications working out for you as well.

Thanks

Steve Lehning

 

[Bloodsaler]

So I want to ask?Which monitor you choose to do this workflow?
and are you planning to buy a spectrometer?such as I1 pro or I1 match

 

[Stephen Marsh]

I understand wishing to avoid upfront costs and using what you have. That being said, will this really save you money in the long run? What about the time spent, the upload/download bandwidth costs, server running costs etc (for yourself and the client)? How will you be exchanging the data back and forth? A web server? Dedicated FTP site? How will you ensure that the remote clients viewing conditions remain profiled? How will you do the same and how will the client know that your set-up is calibrated/profiled so that they have the same level of confidence as you have of them?

[shameless vendor plug follows] As a Kodak master distributor in AU/NZ, the solution that I would recommend is the Kodak InSite Creative Workflow system + Kodak Matchprint Virtual technology (using an Xrite Eye One spectro and Eizo ColorEdge monitor). This obviously has hardware, software and other setup costs, however I believe that in the long run the other benefits of the ICW with it's SmartReview system with on demand data streaming for the current zoom/pan view, review/collaboration tools, approval and comment audit history and other features would far outweigh the original investment.

KODAK INSITE Creative Workflow System - Kodak Graphic Communications Group

MATCHPRINT Virtual Technology - Kodak Graphic Communications Group


Sincerely,

Stephen Marsh

 

[tschroe]

Steve - you bring up an interesting idea - I like it.

But then -

I understand wishing to avoid upfront costs and using what you have. That being said, will this really save you money in the long run? What about the time spent, the upload/download bandwidth costs, server running costs etc (for yourself and the client)? How will you be exchanging the data back and forth? A web server? Dedicated FTP site? How will you ensure that the remote clients viewing conditions remain profiled? How will you do the same and how will the client know that your set-up is calibrated/profiled so that they have the same level of confidence as you have of them?

To that end, let's assume most if not all of these points are already solved (as they are in our case and probably for many other companies) - our IT infrastructure is robust to say the least, and we currently use Acrobat shared reviews on a dedicated webdav server (I'm not an IT guru so I'm not sure how difficult this is to setup, but I cannot imagine it's all that hard). We also have a dedicated FTP as I'd be willing to bet Steve's company does as well if they're transferring files between their clients.

With that said, yeah - I've looked at the various soft-proofing systems out there over the years (ORIS, Kodak, Helios, etc.) and they all pretty much resemble glorified scenarios like Steve outlined - i.e. they provide a big green checkmark that the monitor is calibrated - so take some of the guesswork out - but bring no real value add outside of what can be done using the Adobe suite of tools we already all have (ORIS even used - may still use I can't remember - the Acrobat engine as its comment/markup tool) and with a fairly heavy price tag.

Bottom line = I haven't jumped on any of the solution bandwagons because I've been under-impressed w/ all of them, so I'd be interested to read what others may have to say. We'd love to move to a soft-proofing scenario this year ourselves.

_thom schroeder
sr. color analyst, recreational equipment, inc. (REI)

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Thom, first off, let me say that I like Acrobat PDF with output intent for creating review files (been there, done that at a basic level).

For non critical colour review, then one can forget about the whole "level of confidence" thing in knowing that both parties have a capable monitor and that it is recently profiled etc...

One of the things that I really like about the Kodak tools is the Smart Review software, which uses on-demand streaming. This means that once the original large file size high resolution file is uploaded to the hosting server, folk reviewing the data using this software are only served the data required to view the current zoom level and pan/section of the image (the Smart Review client is free to the reviewer). This speeds up the review process, one can start working right away. Does Acrobat do this, is this important to different users? Only each individual can answer this (host or client may have different views).

I will have to look into the Acrobat offering in regards to the commenting, review/compare, versioning, locked audit trail of who said what when, approval, notifications etc - as I can't comment on that side of things from first hand experience and my Acrobat product knowledge is not deep enough on this area.


Regards,

Stephen Marsh

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Thom, a small addition to my previous post, I have attached a document from Kodak comparing the features/benefits of ICW compared to Acrobat.

Regards,

Stephen Marsh

 

[erikvlie]

Have you checked this out? No affiliation with the company, but looks very promising to me. http://smartt.the.softproofware.eu/index.php/en.html