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Thursday, September 25, 2014

GMG brings a wide range of color management workflow and proofing technologies to Labelexpo 2014

GMG, the leading developer and supplier of high-end color management software solutions, will be showing a complete complement of color management and proofing systems for label printing at booth 6511. Being held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, IL from September 9-11, Labelexpo Americas is the continent's largest event for the label, product decoration, web printing and converting industry.

“While matching brand colors has always been of paramount importance, the ongoing trend of printing labels on digital presses - as well as traditional offset, flexo and gravure presses—has made color management even more critical. It is now a matter of ensuring that color from any print process matches that of any other process. It is also critical, as the print supply chain extends itself, that color always matches no matter who is working on a file, by accessing an image file from a master color space. GMG is looking forward to demonstrating our expertise in just about any facet of color management—from proofing to workflow,” comments Joseph Varone, GMG Americas vice president of sales. “Specifically, we look forward to showing our expertise in creating predictive proofing for spot colors and overprints with our award-winning GMG OpenColor, and building complete, late-binding RGB workflows with GMG ColorMaster.”

GMG OpenColor: Precisely predict the color appearance of printed inks
A major highlight at the GMG booth is GMG OpenColor, the 2013 recipient of a Flexographic Technical Association Technical Innovation Award and an InterTech Technology Award. A continuing trend in label printing is the increasing complexity of jobs and the use of multi-color printing. Many labels require different combinations of inks, substrates, screening, and other variables. One of the most difficult challenges facing a converter is accurately and reliably communicating color to the supply chain. Until now, to accurately communicate a mix of colors, every combination would require a specific test chart showing the different combinations—a costly process that involves color fingerprint charts, the making of plates, and lengthy testing.  GMG OpenColor is a proofing technology that precisely predicts the color appearance of printed inks, particularly spot colors and ‘overprints’—inks printed on top of each other. This allows the previously unattainable ability to assure a proof will accurately simulate a printed result. GMG OpenColor resolves this complex problem and provides highly accurate color profiles, with less information.

The spectral color engine of GMG OpenColor 1.1 is now capable of creating up to 15 channels profiles without fingerprinting the press. The software automatically averages data, especially helpful when importing data collected at different press run times. As a result, any possible deviation is included in the final profile calculation. Flexo prepress companies, particularly, will profit from the new color intensity and dot gain adjustments. Users can define a target dot gain from a specific printing process or adjust dot gain measurements to compensate for possible faulty printing conditions, which can occur during reference print runs or color standard productions. GMG OpenColor also has a connection to spectral color information from Colibri (matchmycolor) and PantoneLIVE (X-Rite). GMG OpenColor allows those who adopt Expanded Color Gamut Printing to create 5-, 6- or 7-color profiles from just a few patches or with the help of multicolor test charts.

GMG ColorMaster 2.1: Keep images in an RGB space until you need them
RGB data storage and workflows have become increasingly popular, particularly with the use of a wider variety of media and print processes. GMG ColorMaster is attractive for companies—such as ad agencies, repro shops, prepress businesses and print buyers—that want to keep their data in the RGB color space as long as possible. It also helps those who process print globally—such as brand owners or global converters—who need to consider different standards. GMG ColorMaster helps provide a color-accurate late-binding RGB-workflow, meaning that images are not converted from their RGB space until needed.

By viewing images in the GMG ColorMaster color space, content originators—typically photographers—can make image adjustments early before storing files into the database. Unlike other RGB workflows, GMG ColorMaster offers viewing on a virtual CMYK color space, which guarantees WYSIWYG for print—either previewed on a monitor, or a GMG ColorMaster hard proof. Once the image has been retouched within the GMG ColorMaster color space, the ‘master’ RGB file can be output to any industry standard with confidence of its color accuracy. It offers a high degree of automation, and prepress departments can experience up to 50% timesavings. GMG ColorMaster 2.1 offers a process-neutral workflow and extremely flexible format for image data storage. It supplies predefined settings and optimized profiles for most popular target color spaces and a color space that covers all common printing gamuts—including the ability to accurately convert CMYK files to RGB. Using GMG ColorMaster assures once-only color correction, regardless of the ultimate output standard and direct output to any media standard, without further file alterations. With GMG ColorMaster, printers can experience shorter print makeready times, and consistent print quality.

A complete resource of color management of proofing solutions
Many other GMG products will be available for demonstration at Labelexpo. They include:

GMG ColorProof 5.5: With the most recent version of the popular proofing software, users will not only find much quicker startup and job creating times, but some helpful user interface improvements – particularly within the new Manual Job Manager. Customers working with packaging will benefit from the enhanced handling of white ink and transparent areas when proofing on foil, along with enhanced integration with GMG OpenColor. GMG DotProof users will find a much sharper dot. GMG ColorProof now alerts the administrator when attention is needed—for example, to load paper, calibrate a printer, or fix a job error. Full 64-bit support allows for the use of more RAM, significantly boosting the processing power. For packaging, GMG ColorProof 5.5 also offers optimized white printing and improved quality control of spot colors for label companies.  A remote proofing edition is also available for supply chain partners to review hardcopies of proofs in their offices.

GMG ColorServer 4.9: A recently updated version of the popular color management software, GMG ColorServer provides superior, easy-to-use color management, delivering consistent and repeatable color results to all output processes—print as well as online digital displays. New for GMG ColorServer 4.9 is support for the PDF/VT-1 variable-data printing (VDP) file format. Part of the challenge of variable-data printing is the often extremely fast file processing requirements to ensure just-in-time delivery to the latest generation of high-speed digital printing presses. GMG has addressed this issue from two directions. First, the current 32-bit version of the application has been greatly optimized. Second, for even faster performance, GMG is releasing a 64-bit native version, which offers almost unlimited file processing capabilities. GMG ColorServer 4.9 also offers an extremely accurate CMYK to RGB lossless conversion process that enlarges the color space back to the file’s original RGB values. This allows for color space normalization within an RGB-based image database, only performing the device/process specific CMYK conversion at the final output stage. The Paper Adaption Tool in GMG ColorServer lets print service providers recalculate a file’s color data against a particular support material, even if the particular proof simulates a different final stock.

GMG CoZone, a modular production environment based in the cloud, is an indispensable control center for every online production workflow. Content 100% safe; there is no more email forwarding. Users can create configurable download access, with easy to manage permission options. GMG CoZone integrates the cloud and project collaboration with high-quality color management toolsets. The GMG CoZone Collaborate module allows project participants to manage, review, proof and approve graphic arts content. The latest version of GMG CoZone offers unique and intuitive mark-up tools for online proofing. The GMG CoZone pricing model is ‘Pay per job’, which means that licensing for unlimited number of users is available without causing any additional costs.

“GMG is being adopted by many label printers and brand owners who require matching colors on any substrate,” adds Varone. We look forward to advising printers how to achieve accurate, repeatable color for labels, no matter the workflow or print process,”