June 2011

June 2011

I’ve had a bit of a spend up over the last couple of months and software seems to be where my money has been going.

First on the list was a GMG colour server and smart profiler, the magic wand of colour management. For those of you not familiar with it, it removes the need for icc profiles on your Rip and by using the smart profiler with a spectrophotometer it enables you to make your own profiles that are specific to your printer and media.

It takes along time to get your head around especially if, like me, you run multiple types of ink, media and have a couple of different types of Rip - but once running it's pretty clever. Being able to get latex, solvent and UV printers to output and match one ISO 39L standard proof instantly is very impressive.

My next call was to Esko. We were looking at ways to speed up our cutting and finishing department. We looked at the excellent package offered by Zund but we went with Esko based purely on what they were offering on future developments. I reckon the Esko software will be able to make huge savings in labour cost alone and the clever ways it prepares files saves massive amounts of time in the studio.

Thing is, my existing Rips, which were supposed to do all this, are now just operating as an interface between between Mac and printer - GMG and Esko do all the hard work and it just Rips the file.

Next time I need to update them and an invoice arrives for whatever it might be, it's going to beg the question - what exactly am I paying for?

Comments please to industrymole@imagereportsmag.co.uk