Print Buying Direct

12647 and all that – Colour Management in Printing – Part 5 – 14th May 2009

Digital input needed
Certification by a government accredited body such as PMC gives print buyers proof that a printer can produce high quality colour print and achieve defined targets, both on-press with documented colour management, and in handling customers. Buyers can hopefully spend less time asking for proof of competence. It could also mean that their work doesn’t need to be tied to a specific printer: as long as reprints are done by an accredited service provider. The same quality can be expected.

The UK’s certification scheme was designed to improve quality for printers with conventional offset presses, but its scope readily includes digital printing. Digital printers who follow it can benefit from the business process controls it requires for compliance, as well as quality assurance. However their input is vital for the future because, as Mr Sherfield explains: ‘From a colour management and standard viewpoint many of the manufacturers are not supplying workflows that reflect the latest standards, and have colour management tools that are often difficult and counterintuitive to use. Clients need to be clear on their colour requirements from digital printing: do they need common appearance across a campaign using digital and other printing methods? In turn users need the knowledge and expertise to meet the client’s expectations. So… there are many gaps and pitfalls in the area’.

Optimised process controls reduce consumables waste and save time. It can also offer greater latitude for achieving good quality on lower grade stocks than might otherwise be possible. Becoming a formally certified ISO 12647 printers can be a boost to a business’s credentials, while for customers is gives a guarantee of reliable and consistent quality, with a defined complaints procedure when things go wrong. As it should lead to greater efficiencies, this can also be a way to cut costs, despite the initial outlay for certification.

To be continued…

See Part one of – The magic circle – print, paper and recycling

Also part one of in Flight, preflight and post flight –

& Part one of this blog -

Print Buying Direct is one of the leading websites for buying print and is a brand of The Printing House Ltd, Crewe, Cheshire, UK

The Printing House are specialists and experts in Prospectus of all kinds – see our dedicated prospectus Website www.schoolprospectus.info – New on our Schools site – have a look at our new turn page technology (also known as digital editions)- have your prospectus or brochure online (digital prospectus or digital brochure) – but turn the pages as if it was paper.

Don’t forget to see our new offer – Budget Black and white leaflets – 10,000 Leaflets designed, printed and delivered for only £199

Best of all – don’t forget that our Banner Stands (pull up banners) are still only £99 plus delivery!

Business Cards (Business Card Printing) – £10 for 100 Full Colour Business Cards.

We’re still running our very popular Lettterheads Campaign. 2000 letterheads for only £125 in full colour, printed onto a quality 100gsm laser guaranteed paper. see our letterheads webpage for more info.

At The Printing House (Print Buying Direct) we are experts at helping you with the production of your newsletter, whether it be for your employees, customers or fellow club members. See our Newsletters web page for help and advice.

Keep an eye out for our new website for The Printing House Ltd, due for relaunch in May.

Our superb Wallet Folders are still on offer – see http://www.printbuyingdirect.co.uk/wallet-folders.html

12647 and all that – Colour Management in Printing – Part 4 – 13th May 2009
Auditing print
PMC and its equivalents abroad categorically do not provide any consulting services, unlike Fogra and UGRA. Their qualifications are internationally endorsed by governments, which require absolutely squeaky clean auditor credentials. Auditors in the UK must complete a week-long course, followed by on the job training before they can be considered qualified. PMC has already run one of these courses, described by Mr Lindstrom as ‘very demanding and professionally executed’ and has another scheduled for June.

Jon Stack, scheme manager at PMC, explains that ‘the auditors on the course are not qualified to certify – it’s only accredited certification bodies that can do that. For those on the course wishing to become auditors, they first have to pass the course, and then go through on the job training with us to become fully qualified auditors’.
The PMC course is demanding, but that is as it should be for certification to have teeth and to make sure that print buyers really can trust it. Formal certification can also help printers in disputes since it requires documentation of their complaints procedures and quality assurance controls.

To be continued…

See Part one of – The magic circle – print, paper and recycling

Also part one of in Flight, preflight and post flight –

& Part one of this blog -

Print Buying Direct is one of the leading websites for buying print and is a brand of The Printing House Ltd, Crewe, Cheshire, UK

The Printing House are specialists and experts in Prospectus of all kinds – see our dedicated prospectus Website www.schoolprospectus.info – New on our Schools site – have a look at our new turn page technology (also known as digital editions)- have your prospectus or brochure online (digital prospectus or digital brochure) – but turn the pages as if it was paper.

Don’t forget to see our new offer – Budget Black and white leaflets – 10,000 Leaflets designed, printed and delivered for only £199

Best of all – don’t forget that our Banner Stands (pull up banners) are still only £99 plus delivery!

Business Cards (Business Card Printing) – £10 for 100 Full Colour Business Cards.

We’re still running our very popular Lettterheads Campaign. 2000 letterheads for only £125 in full colour, printed onto a quality 100gsm laser guaranteed paper. see our letterheads webpage for more info.

At The Printing House (Print Buying Direct) we are experts at helping you with the production of your newsletter, whether it be for your employees, customers or fellow club members. See our Newsletters web page for help and advice.

Keep an eye out for our new website for The Printing House Ltd, due for relaunch in May.

Our superb Wallet Folders are still on offer – see http://www.printbuyingdirect.co.uk/wallet-folders.html

12647 and all that – Colour Management in Printing – Part 2 – 11th May 2009

Establishing a standard
In the offset print world, the BPIF has already recognised that this is making life difficult for its members and is working to take general quality assurance controls one step further.

The idea is to provide a certification procedure that accredits printing companies for compliance to ISO 12647. This is the international standard for Graphic Technology Process Control for the production of Half – tone Colour Separations, Proofs and Production Prints. You can tell it’s important because of all those capitals. It is divided into seven sections: one defines parameters and measuring methods and the rest are specific to different print processes (offset, newspapers, gravure, screen, flexo and proofing).

An eighth is under consideration, but there is so far no subsection for digital printing systems. These often have different print characteristics to any of the conventional processes. While it may be often desirable to match digital to something else sometimes that would artificially limit its quality potential. Another problem is that there are a lot of digital ‘marking engine’ technologies, each with their own characteristics, unlike say offset presses that all use broadly similar plates, blankets and have agreed standards for process ink colours.

Even so, elements of the ISO 12647 offset and proofing parts can apply o digital work. Paul Sherfield, principal consultant with the Missing Horse Consultancy group, explains: ‘ISO 12647-2 is the litho part of the standard, based on the colour gamuts available from litho presses, inks and papers. Digital printing devices, though still mainly CMYK, have differing, often bigger gamuts. The question is what standard or gamut to use? This must be dependent upon the purpose of the piece. In a mixed printing process campaign, the litho colour gamut will be the smallest, so the other processes used have to colour manage their output to ISO 12647-2. if only one form of digital printing is being used, say wide format inkjet, the maximum gamut of the device can be used to produces great results, but only if it starts from a good RGB image’.

To be continued…

See Part one of – The magic circle – print, paper and recycling

Also part one of in Flight, preflight and post flight – & Part one of this blog -

Print Buying Direct is the online facility for buying print of The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK

The Printing House are specialists and experts in Prospectus of all kinds – see our dedicated prospectus Website www.schoolprospectus.info – New on our Schools site – have a look at our new turn page technology (also known as digital editions)- have your prospectus or brochure online (digital prospectus or digital brochure) – but turn the pages as if it was paper.

Don’t forget to see our new offer – Budget Black and white leaflets – 10,000 Leaflets designed, printed and delivered for only £199

Best of all – don’t forget that our Banner Stands (pull up banners) are still only £99 plus delivery!

Business Cards (Business Card Printing) – £10 for 100 Full Colour Business Cards.

We’re still running our very popular Lettterheads Campaign. 2000 letterheads for only £125 in full colour, printed onto a quality 100gsm laser guaranteed paper. see our letterheads webpage for more info.

At The Printing House (Print Buying Direct) we are experts at helping you with the production of your newsletter, whether it be for your employees, customers or fellow club members. See our Newsletters web page for help and advice.

Keep an eye out for our new website for The Printing House Ltd, due for relaunch in May.

Our superb Wallet Folders are still on offer – see http://www.printbuyingdirect.co.uk/wallet-folders.html

12647 and all that – Colour Management in Printing – Part 1 – 11th May 2009
It may not have a snappy name, but the ISO 12647 standard can help digital printers prove that their colour is up to scratch. Laurel Brunner elucidates.

It’s fair to say that compared to conventional offset, digital technology is a relatively new business with a unique scope to change how print is used. Advances in quality mean that digital print is no longer a second-rate alternative to real offset, so for many jobs these days it is considerations of responsiveness, cost and format that are the deciding factors when choosing between processes. Yet while many digital printers can certainly compete with offset for output quality, just saying so is not enough for print buyers. They increasingly demand absolute quality guarantees.

So far there is no formally recognised methodology for quality assurance, nor is there any guarantee that steps to achieve it are implemented consistently. Print buyers have to trust their eyes or go through often convoluted processes of quality checking. For printers this means they often have to provide themselves against subjective criteria and expectations over which they have little control.

To be continued…

See Part one of – The magic circle – print, paper and recycling

Also part one of in Flight, preflight and post flight

Print Buying Direct is the online facility for buying print of The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK

The Printing House are specialists and experts in Prospectus of all kinds – see our dedicated prospectus Website www.schoolprospectus.info – New on our Schools site – have a look at our new turn page technology (also known as digital editions)- have your prospectus or brochure online (digital prospectus or digital brochure) – but turn the pages as if it was paper.

Don’t forget to see our new offer – Budget Black and white leaflets – 10,000 Leaflets designed, printed and delivered for only £199

Best of all – don’t forget that our Banner Stands (pull up banners) are still only £99 plus delivery!

Business Cards (Business Card Printing) – £10 for 100 Full Colour Business Cards.

We’re still running our very popular Lettterheads Campaign. 2000 letterheads for only £125 in full colour, printed onto a quality 100gsm laser guaranteed paper. see our letterheads webpage for more info.

At The Printing House (Print Buying Direct) we are experts at helping you with the production of your newsletter, whether it be for your employees, customers or fellow club members. See our Newsletters web page for help and advice.

Keep an eye out for our new website for The Printing House Ltd, due for relaunch in May.

Our superb Wallet Folders are still on offer – see http://www.printbuyingdirect.co.uk/wallet-folders.html

In flight, preflight, and post flight – part 4 – 8th May 2009

Keep on checking
Once the packaged job for PDF are sent to the print shop or publishers (normally next in the workflow), the post production person does a final check, or post flight of the PDF file. Some of these checks include page set up, transparency usage, that fonts are embedded and that images are there and in the proper high resolution. Enfocus’ PitStop excels at the final PDF check, which must be done to prevent against any unforeseen errors up to this point in the workflow. What is more, PitStop can be used to fix any remaining problems. Some will opt for FlightCheck at this post flight staged as well, for is can also fully flight a PDF print job.
Generally, there cannot be enough checks in the workflow. This is because there are various disciplines and mindsets needed to produce the final printed product. Using a myriad of known and reliable software solutions is all important, and in some cases the solutions may straddle both the creative and the pre-production aspects, or even the creative and post production aspects. Yes, with the proper software tools used to preflight documents before printing, the pilot is able to keep an eagle eye on those gauges and a steady hand on the tiller during the light. It is just plain simple logic to understand flight checks must take place before take off, and after landing as well!

To be continued…

See Part one of – The magic circle – print, paper and recycling – also part one of this blog – in Flight, preflight and post flight

Print Buying Direct is the online facility for buying print of The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK

The Printing House are specialists and experts in Prospectus of all kinds – see our dedicated prospectus Website www.schoolprospectus.info – New on our Schools site – have a look at our new turn page technology (also known as digital editions)- have your prospectus or brochure online (digital prospectus or digital brochure) – but turn the pages as if it was paper.

Don’t forget to see our new offer – Budget Black and white leaflets – 10,000 Leaflets designed, printed and delivered for only £199

Best of all – don’t forget that our Banner Stands (pull up banners) are still only £99 plus delivery!

Business Cards (Business Card Printing) – £10 for 100 Full Colour Business Cards.

We’re still running our very popular Lettterheads Campaign. 2000 letterheads for only £125 in full colour, printed onto a quality 100gsm laser guaranteed paper. see our letterheads webpage for more info.

At The Printing House (Print Buying Direct) we are experts at helping you with the production of your newsletter, whether it be for your employees, customers or fellow club members. See our Newsletters web page for help and advice.

Keep an eye out for our new website for The Printing House Ltd, due for relaunch in May.

Our superb Wallet Folders are still on offer – see http://www.printbuyingdirect.co.uk/wallet-folders.html

The magic circle – print, paper and recycling – 4th May 2009 – Part 5

Better than ever

Tullis Russell, agrees that there is still a strong call for recycleds, but that print buyers are looking for top quality grades.’ The demands of the print, design and publishing markets continue to evolve and the clear message we are receiving from end users are brand holders is that the availability of recycled grades is more important than ever,’ he said. ‘However, it is vital that these green products continue to deliver the superior performance expected from such recognised brands. Achieving this balance has been at the heart of our new product development strategy and has resulted in us introducing recycled grades across our leading premium quality board range, trucard.’

‘The trucard recycled portfolio now includes a variety of recycled options in trucard 1 gloss, trucard 2 gloss and, in uncoated products, trucard 0 matt and felt.

‘Made to the same premium standard as the rest of the range, all the new additions contain 50% virgin fibre and 50% post consumer deinked recycled fibre. As such, they carry the National Association of Paper Merchant (NAPM) recycled mark as well as FSC certification.

‘The top quality recycled fibre used in manufacture of the recycled range guarantees there is no compromise in performance. The new recycled products print and convert like standard trucard. These new versions give users and specifiers a genuine recycled cartonboard with the same outstanding performance and give users an even greater choice when looking for a board with sound environmental credentials.’

Whether you are looking for the lightweight or heavyweight, high white or ‘natural’, there are plenty of options available that will truly help to close the loop an from the ‘magic circle’ of recycling.

To be continued…

See Part one of this blog – The magic circle – print, paper and recycling

Print Buying Direct is the online facility for buying print of The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK

The Printing House are specialists and experts in Prospectus of all kinds – see our dedicated prospectus Website www.schoolprospectus.info – New on our Schools site – have a look at our new turn page technology (also known as digital editions)- have your prospectus or brochure online (digital prospectus or digital brochure) – but turn the pages as if it was paper.

Don’t forget to see our new offer – Budget Black and white leaflets – 10,000 Leaflets designed, printed and delivered for only £199

Best of all – don’t forget that our Banner Stands (pull up banners) are still only £99 plus delivery!

Business Cards (Business Card Printing) – £10 for 100 Full Colour Business Cards.

We’re still running our very popular Lettterheads Campaign. 2000 letterheads for only £125 in full colour, printed onto a quality 100gsm laser guaranteed paper. see our letterheads webpage for more info.

At The Printing House (Print Buying Direct) we are experts at helping you with the production of your newsletter, whether it be for your employees, customers or fellow club members. See our Newsletters web page for help and advice.

Keep an eye out for our new website for The Printing House Ltd, due for relaunch in May.

Our superb Wallet Folders are still on offer – see http://www.printbuyingdirect.co.uk/wallet-folders.html

Offset Lithography – Printing to you and me! – Part 19 – 29th April 2009

Offset: the big fight back
Clearly, there has been no resting on laurels when it comes to developments in offset over the last 20 years, but because offset litho is the most prolific form of printing, it also finds itself under increasing attack, mainly from digital processes that have now matured beyond measure. The last ten years have seen the digital process go from mere photocopy colour and output standards, to a process that without doubt threatens the quality, speed and versatility of litho printing. And, digital machine manufacturers have been very quick to play any advantages they have.

But it is ‘hats off all round’ to the offset machine manufacturers who have pulled out all the stops when it comes to innovation, even totally changing the way litho actually work. All manufacturers have been concentrating on the key elements such as speed, automation and quality output, but two in particular, Heidelberg and manroland, with the Anicolor and DirectDrive respectively, have in recent times brought out new concepts that really do keep the litho press at the forefront of technology for printing’s future.To be continued…

See parts one, to eighteen of this blog – Offset Lithography - Printing to you and me!

See our design and print testimonials page to see what our customers say about us.

Print Buying Direct is the online facility for buying print of The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK

The Printing House are specialists and experts in Prospectus of all kinds – see our dedicated prospectus Website www.schoolprospectus.info – New on our Schools site – have a look at our new turn page technology (also known as digital editions)- have your prospectus or brochure online (digital prospectus or digital brochure) – but turn the pages as if it was paper.

Don’t forget to see our new offer – Budget Black and white leaflets – 10,000 Leaflets designed, printed and delivered for only £199

Best of all – don’t forget that our Banner Stands (pull up banners) are still only £99 plus delivery!

Business Cards (Business Card Printing) – £10 for 100 Full Colour Business Cards.

We’re still running our very popular Lettterheads Campaign. 2000 letterheads for only £125 in full colour, printed onto a quality 100gsm laser guaranteed paper. see our letterheads webpage for more info.

At The Printing House (Print Buying Direct) we are experts at helping you with the production of your newsletter, whether it be for your employees, customers or fellow club members. See our Newsletters web page for help and advice.

Keep an eye out for our new website for The Printing House Ltd, due for relaunch in May.

Offset Lithography – Printing to you and me! – Part 17 – 27th April 2009

There has been a lot of industry discussion around the concept of Direct Imaging (DI), and it seems that printers either love or hate the idea. The fact is that some printers, predominantly small players who were often previously involved in the repro side of the industry, have had a lot of success with the technology. A number of experiments to weigh up just how the two processes, conventional and DI, compete against each other. It must be admitted that there was not much in it, and if anything DI is worth looking at as opposed to installing a digital press.

Heidelberg’s exit from the technology in early 2000 probably did a lot to dent the industry wide conception of DI, but speak to the converted, and they would not look back. Screen’s Truepass, KBA’s, Karat, and Presstek’s and Ryobi’s offering to the market, are still making good headway, and overall, for a small printer with a good mixture of work, the benefits are there. If anything it is still a good stepping stone between conventional offset and digital, with benefits in automation that are defiantly worth pursuing, especially in the area of manually putting on plates, something the small offset industry needs to address if it is going to seriously be a contender against digital installations.

To be continued…

See parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and sixteen of this blog – Offset Lithography - Printing to you and me!

See our design and print testimonials page to see what our customers say about us.

See our recent Design of the Times Blog Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

Print Buying Direct is the online facility for buying print of The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK

The Printing House are specialists and experts in Prospectus of all kinds – see our dedicated prospectus Website www.schoolprospectus.info – New on our Schools site – have a look at our new turn page technology (also known as digital editions)- have your prospectus or brochure online (digital prospectus or digital brochure) – but turn the pages as if it was paper.

Don’t forget to see our new offer – Budget Black and white leaflets – 10,000 Leaflets designed, printed and delivered for only £199

Best of all – don’t forget that our Banner Stands (pull up banners) are still only £99 plus delivery!

Business Cards (Business Card Printing) – £10 for 100 Full Colour Business Cards.

We’re still running our very popular Lettterheads Campaign. 2000 letterheads for only £125 in full colour, printed onto a quality 100gsm laser guaranteed paper. see our letterheads webpage for more info.

At The Printing House (Print Buying Direct) we are experts at helping you with the production of your newsletter, whether it be for your employees, customers or fellow club members. See our Newsletters web page for help and advice.

Keep an eye out for our new website for The Printing House Ltd, due for relaunch in May.

Offset Lithography – Printing to you and me! – Part 14 – 23rd April 2009

Automated estimating and production print schedule planning software packages speak for themselves, but when it comes to print machine room data capture, MIS has really made an impression. The ability to measure exactly how long each job takes, down to the minute or even second, allows for production management to pinpoint areas of repeated loss in production time. It can highlight problem areas, including the efficiency of certain types of job, and also the efficiency of minders on the job. There is nothing like data figures in black and white to tell you where vital minutes are being lost either in the type of work you are taking on, or in how long particular minders are taking to do the job. MIS systems are also a very useful tool when it comes to motivating staff on the machine room floor, for instead of verbally instructing delivery times, usually in the form of ‘this is urgent, quick as you can’, clear, black and white schedule timings can be communicated leaving less opportunity for conflict, as well as a much more professional way of communicating.

To be continued…

See parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen of this blog – Offset Lithography - Printing to you and me!

See our design and print testimonials page to see what our customers say about us.

See our recent Design of the Times Blog Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

Print Buying Direct is the online facility for buying print of The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK

The Printing House are specialists and experts in Prospectus of all kinds – see our dedicated prospectus Website www.schoolprospectus.info – New on our Schools site – have a look at our new turn page technology – have your prospectus or brochure online (digital prospectus or digital brochure) – but turn the pages as if it was paper.

Don’t forget to see our new offer – Budget Black and white leafets – 10,000 Leaflets designed, printed and delivered for only £199

Best of all – don’t forget that our Banner Stands (pull up banners) are still only £99 plus delivery!

Business Cards (Business Card Printing) – £10 for 100 Full Colour Business Cards.

We’re still running our very popular Lettterheads Campaign. 2000 letterheads for only £125 in full colour, printed onto a quality 100gsm laser guaranteed paper. see our letterheads webpage for more info.

Offset Lithography – Printing to you and me! – Part 13 – 23rd April 2009

MIS- to measure is to manage

Management Information Systems is another entrant into the production area of print that has had a resounding affect on maximising efficiency over the last two decades. Before the advent of these amazingly intricate and complicated add-ons to the production process, the whole governance of the factory was carried out either written or verbally, allowing for a multitude of misunderstandings and communication problems. Also, from the shop floor point view, filling in time sheets was a laborious and fiddly occupation, often taking valuable production time as well as being widely open to a misinterpretation, making the measuring of the ‘true’ time spent on jobs almost impossible to calculate.

We have seen a great influx of companies all eager to get their systems in place in a printing company in order to capture all the information possible in an effort to manage the production flow in as efficient a manner as possible. Tharstern, Optimus, Shuttleworth, Imprint Business Systems, and EFI, have all become virtually household names in the industry now as they push their individual solutions geared to helping a printing company operate in amore efficient way.

To be continued…

See parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven and twelve of this blog – Offset Lithography - Printing to you and me!

See our design and print testimonials page to see what our customers say about us.

See our recent Design of the Times Blog Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5

Print Buying Direct is the online facility for buying print of The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK

The Printing House are specialists and experts in Prospectus of all kinds – see our dedicated prospectus Website www.schoolprospectus.info – New on our Schools site – have a look at our new turn page technology – have your prospectus or brochure online (digital prospectus or digital brochure) – but turn the pages as if it was paper.

Don’t forget to see our new offer – Budget Black and white leafets – 10,000 Leaflets designed, printed and delivered for only £199

Best of all – don’t forget that our Banner Stands (pull up banners) are still only £99 plus delivery!

Business Cards (Business Card Printing) – £10 for 100 Full Colour Business Cards.

We’re still running our very popular Lettterheads Campaign. 2000 letterheads for only £125 in full colour, printed onto a quality 100gsm laser guaranteed paper. see our letterheads webpage for more info.