GRACoL vs FOGRA Proofing

[Roland_Epson]

Question: My company is using the Coated GRACoL_2006 color profile however, one of our clients is insisting we provide to them color accurate proofs off our Epson 9900 (+ Spectroproofer) as well to our printer/supplier using the FOGRA39 profile. We have, up until now output all of our proofs under the GRACoL profile. We print Grade 1 coated sheetfed. But now need to print some GRACoL and some FOGRA. So my confusion is, do we need to invest the $$ for the additional profile for our EFI RIP to output these proofs using the FOGRA space?
Does our printer / supplier also need to invest or is this even an issue for them?
Plus, I'm confused because I've heard these profiles are almost an exact match. Is this a legit customer demand?

Apologies - I'm pretty new to all of this and I'm just trying to get a better grasp as to what is necessary from my end to make sure our bases are covered and our customer is happy.
Much thanks!

 

[Magnus]

The Fogra39 target and presets in the EFI rip should be free of charge (if not, you can download the Fogra39 dataset from for free on www.fogra.org. Contact your EFI supplier and they can probably send you the files and instructions.

Fogra39 is measured M0 without UV-cut filter, make shure that your Spectroproofer have a ILS20 or ILS30 instrument without a UV-cut filter before starting.

Next up - the color of your proofing paper should have a Lab-value thats within the tolerances of the whitepoint of Fogra39. If your paper white not exactly match Fogra39, the white point probably can be simulated (paper tint) by the EFI rip.

If all of the above feels very unfamiliar for you, you propably should advice or hire an EFI technician for a day and they will set it up for you.

Regarding the printer - They would need to make new press curves etc. to exactly match Fogra39, this might not be something they are willing to do. To toggle between different standards on one offset press is probably nothing they would want. Unless we are talking a digital press, then the setup should be quite easy to do.

Good luck and let us know how it's progressing.

Best regards,
Magnus

 

[Roland_Epson]

Thank you very much Magnus!
That all makes a little sense to me. But yes, I may need to hire the EFI tech to come out to set this up for us.
Our attached spectroproofer is an ILS20 device and I know that we have our setup for white point compensation to the Epson proofing paper that we use. This should keep it within tolerance?
I've downloaded the data set that you pointed me to, so now
My biggest hurdle is learning to create the new workflow and load it into our RIP software. I've found a couple of videos on YouTube but perhaps you know of a better tutorial for this?

Thanks again!