So you've decided to make top-quality color reproduction your raison d'être. Should you spend some of your hard-won budget on color-management software? NAA Director of Newspaper Services Tom Croteau has two definitive answers for you:
Actually, that's not as obtuse as it sounds. Croteau gives a big thumbs-down to traditional color-management software, but has hope for the generation now emerging.
Many of the current systems use a fixed color table, says Croteau. "The problem with that approach is that the tables were created by the manufacturer. They are not editable. You can't create your own tables. If it works, great--unless something breaks down."
Two groups tend to have trouble with these tables: those who can't use them and those who can. If your color process doesn't match the tables, you're completely out of luck. If your color process does match the tables, you can use the software to achieve consistent results.
Then, of course, someone at your paper could do something insane--reorder ink, say, or replace a burned-out lamp in a laser printer. Suddenly your process no longer matches the color table. The color-management software will still give you consistent results, though--consistently bad results.
"Any calibration is a snapshot, a slice in time," says Croteau. "You have to be pretty confident that everything stays the same. An ink hue may be a little off one way, then the next batch is a little off the other way."
Croteau has special advice concerning EfiColor, which comes bundled with QuarkXpress and is thus lying around many newsrooms: Think before you install it. The color table isn't modifiable, and every 'Xtension (Quark add-in program) adds to Quark's instability.
The news isn't all bad, though. Croteau has high hopes for the next generation of color-management software.
"The next generation of systems is more open. You can use a spectrophotometer to calibrate them," says Croteau. "You can measure test patches from your press or color printer, and then use the results to set up your system."
The only problem with this scenario is that applications must be compatible with the ColorSync standard, and not all popular pre-press programs are, says Croteau. The current version of Adobe Photoshop, for example, does not use the standard. "But the next major release of Photoshop is ColorSnyc compliant."
Croteau says he hasn't made up his mind yet as to the usefulness of the new generation of color-management software.
"The older software was not useful. The new versions may be. Personally, I'm going to reserve judgment until I've tried a few."
If you're also interested in trying a few, here's some info to help you get started:
Chris Feola is the News Systems Editor at the Waterbury (Conn.) Republican-American. E-mail, cjfeola@aol.com.
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