"A trend that is an indicator of the comfort level with remote proofing is that the average proof size has been on a steady increase. This is because people are sending two-page spreads and higher quality work," he continues. "The end result for WAM!PROOF customers is a closer customer relationship and the ability to handle multiple iterations of a design without the cost of taking a lot of time."
In the future, Prust reports, color-accurate, remote digital output should be as easy as selecting the destination site and color management standard of the output device. "For WAM!NET customers that receive proofs, they will be able to inject the client's proof into preflighting and then to the output device of choice with ease," Prust projects.
Correct Calibration
Fujifilm—now heavily marketing the remote proofing capabilities of PictroProof—has its own take on the hoopla surrounding remote proofing and the critical nature of color calibration in remote environments.
"With all of the hoopla of remote proofing, Fuji's main concern still deals with making sure the remote device is calibrated correctly," reports Richard Black, group manager, product development, at Fujifilm. "Many of the current digital proofing systems, including our own FirstProof system, require off-line calibration, meaning that some type of software and densitometer are needed to send new calibration values to the device via a computer."
In some remote locations, Fuji's Black continues, there will probably be technical personnel who can be easily trained to perform and maintain these calibration procedures. However, Fujifilm believes the real growth of remote proofing will be at actual customer locations where these procedures might be difficult to perform on a regular basis.
"This is why we are so excited about our newest digital proofing device, PictroProof," Black reports. "PictroProof has a built-in calibration device. To calibrate the unit, the user selects calibration from the PictroProof control panel, and the unit prints out a calibration print, which is then fed into a strip reading densitometer that is included with the unit."
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