I don't think Kodak any longer offer or support ink-jet proofers, we were recently upgraded to Prinergy 6 and were told most installs now bolt on third-party inkjet and RIP solution such as GMG, we are carrying on with the Kodak Matchprint software that came with Prinergy 5 but I'm not sure it would drive the latest models.
Glenn, Kodak still indeed support inkjet proofing software/hardware, they have recently updated and released version 6.1 of Kodak Proofing Software for Matchprint Inkjet and Kodak Approval (the last inkjet release was 5.2, which was in 2011). Kodak are obviously not putting a whole lot of development into this mature technology with a 3 year break between inkjet software releases! There has been no end of life product announcement or notification. Many users of KPS are still using version 3.x or 4.x, it simply does what they need and they see no need to update unless they need a new controller box or something. KPS currently supports say x600, x800, x880, x900 and x890 series Epson printers and from memory one specific HP model (no Canon models supported).
For Prinergy users in commercial CMYK work with stand alone spot colours, it is very hard to beat Kodak Proofing Software (KPS) on price and benefits/features. With KPS direct connectivity, the Prinergy workflow will do all of the heavy lifting, rasterising and colour managing the proof – while this data is then fed into KPS for the inkjet specific tasks (calibration, layout/nesting, colour bars and certification, spooling/printing etc).
Unless you are doing combined 1 bit plate file inkjet proofing, many people have major concerns with using a different RIP for contone inkjet proofing than the workflow/RIP that is used for producing final plates (concern over proof to plate mismatch).
Kodak have had to go through some tough times in the last few years, cutting back on areas of their business which were not profitable. They first sold off their wide format “yellow box” brand and then a year or so later sold off the “Matchprint” proofing media brand to Ilford Paper and Kodak no longer manufacture or sell any inkjet media. The inkjet media game is very competitive, not much money in it when one considers the overheads of doing business, which is probably how Kodak look at the inkjet proofing RIP market.
So Kodak no longer offer a “complete out of the box package” of Kodak media with matching media configurations and ICC and DeviceLink profiles and colour bars for say Fogra, Gracol or SWOP for KPS. KPS users either have to use a “drop in replacement” media to replace their old Kodak manufactured media if they wish to use their old media configurations, colour profiles and colour bars – or they have to create a brand new media configuration and colour profiles using 3rd party media. If your old KPS licence did not include the option to create 3rd party media configurations, then you can get a free license update from Kodak unlocking this feature. This may be critical in achieving proofs that pass certification for say Fogra or Gracol conditions.
Kodak do appear to have given up on the content/imposition hard copy proofing market. KPS does not support the “new” Epson SureColor T-7000 proofer, which is a common choice for dedicated content/imposition proofing. The “cheapest” new Epson that KPS supports is a x890 model, which is overkill for content/imposition proofing. Generally most commercial printers of any size will have say a x990 model for semi matt coated colour proofing and a cheaper second proofer for content/imposition using lightweight matt coated or uncoated media.
If you are in Packaging where spot colour overprints are critical, then I would not recommend KPS for contone inkjet proofing (even though there is a packaging edition that does have some nice flexo features). I would look into ORIS Color Tuner, GMG, Esko FlexProof, etc. and qualify the proofing of spot colour solid/tint overprints compared to your on-press results, before making a purchase.
Stephen Marsh
