Software - Colour Management

GMG, a leading developer and supplier of high-end colour management software solutions, today announced that it has signed an agreement with HP to jointly promote and market the GMG colour management solutions in combination with HP Scitex wide-format printers. In addition, GMG has been awarded the HP Graphics Solutions Partner Gold level for 2011.

GMG wide-format printing applications offer outstanding colour management. Solutions include GMG ColorServer for fully automated colour space transformations and GMG SmartProfiler for calibrating and profiling digital and wide-format printers.

Tailored to the specific needs of HP Scitex customers, GMG will offer a dedicated GMG ColorServer Suite for HP Scitex printers as a customised software bundle including GMG ColorServer/SmartProfiler and a set of preconfigured hot folders and ready-to-use colour profiles. The GMG hot folder technology guarantees every user the best possible production reliability and colour accuracy, helping avoid errors right from the start. Thus, no expert knowledge is needed for the setup of colour-managed workflows, regardless of the number of wide-format printers in use. The GMG colour management solution equally benefits companies that have several similar or identical printers installed, achieving identical quality of the printed output on every device.

The GMG solution for HP Scitex printers will be shown in HP Scitex demo centres worldwide, giving more users access to GMG colour management technology and enabling them to achieve the highest repeatability of consistent colour results on every printing system and nearly any substrate.

"We are very pleased that HP, as the major industry player in the digital and wide-format printing business, considers our colour management technology as the solution of choice," says Paul Willems, CEO of GMG GmbH & Co. KG. "This clearly accentuates the outstanding print quality and degree of innovation GMG is offering the wide-format printing segments with its easy-to-use software tools. We are convinced that our customers will greatly benefit from colour-managed workflows, helping them to meet their customers' expectations for high colour accuracy and colours that obtain a visual match with offset printing which very often is taken as the reference standard to measure the print quality."

According to Yariv Avisar, vice president and general manager, Scitex Large-format Printing Division, HP, "Colour management is becoming an increasingly important part of the wide-format printing workflow as customers look to create a competitive advantage and meet end users' needs for consistent, high-quality output. After in-depth testing, HP concluded that the GMG ColorServer software is an ideal solution to meet these needs for our customers."

The GMG solution for HP Scitex printers is expected to be available in mid-March.

Four Pees, an international business partner providing marketing, sales and distribution services for production automation and colour optimisation solutions announces it has been appointed as strategic partner for Color Confidence in the Benelux. The company has been assigned the task to expand the reseller channel specifically in the pro-photo and prosumer photo markets and increase the overall Color Confidence awareness.

As part of the agreement Four Pees will also be able to sub-distribute specific colour related products to its network of international resellers. This will allow the company to strengthen its position as a one-stop-distributor for automation and color optimisation products.

As a leading value added distributor, Color Confidence supplies resellers with products that make their customers’ images stand out from the crowd. Color Confidence offers the widest range of products and services from the world's leading manufacturers including PANTONE, X-Rite and NEC displays amongst many others, together with an own brand range of calibration and colour management essentials for photographers, designers and anyone for whom colour is important. What makes Color Confidence truly different is its expertise, experience and commitment to training, education and technical support. 

“The Color Confidence product portfolio is a natural extension of our own products”, says Tom Peire, founder and CEO of Four Pees. “The increased focus on the pro-photo and prosumer photo markets in the Benelux creates a synergy with the additional efforts we intended to put in that market anyway. We are also very happy that through this partnership we are able to offer our resellers some essential add-ons to the products we were already selling”.

In the relatively short amount of time, since its incorporation, Four Pees has built up strong relations with resellers in different vertical markets in the Benelux and the rest of Europe. In 2010 the company expanded its team with some very experienced sales professionals. Koen Lesage, Sales Manager Central Europe at Four Pees will specifically take on the responsibility for the Color Confidence product portfolio in the Benelux market.

“Through Four Pees’ extended experience in channel development and reseller management, we are confident that we will be able to grow our channel in the Benelux market”, says Geoffrey Clements, Managing Director of Color Confidence/ TypeMaker Ltd. “With the right dedicated resources that Four Pees brings and the overall added value we have been offering our partners internationally for years, we are confident that we will be able to consolidate our place in the Benelux market.”

X-Rite, Incorporated, the world leader in colour management, measurement and communication technologies, today announced that most of its pre-press and pressroom instruments and software are now manufactured to the new XRGA standard.  Joining the list of XRGA native solutions (PANTONE PLUS SERIES digital library, ColorMunki Design, ColorMunki Photo and EasyTrax), all new orders of the following products will now ship from the factory as XRGA compliant: the 500 Series, 939, SpectroEye, IntelliTrax, X-RiteColor Master v8.3, InkFormulation 6, ColorQuality 6, Color iMatch / Color iQC v7.1, and ColorPort v2.0.1. Existing customers can have their instruments updated for free when then send them in for annual recertification.  Software updates and data transforms are available online from xrite.com.  Any new products developed and released by X-Rite for the graphic arts industry in the future will be XRGA native.

XRGA is a new metrology standard for the Graphic Arts industry. Designed to take advantage of advances in colour science and new international ISO standards, XGRA provides a way to reduce measurement discrepancies between legacy instruments previously developed by X-Rite and GretagMacbeth. The XRGA standard improves inter-model agreement so that users can enjoy high-quality data exchange between sites that use different instrumentation, regardless of their legacy affiliation. Additional information and answers to frequently asked questions can be found at: www.xrite.com/xrga

X-Rite, Incorporated, the world leader in colour management, measurement and communication technologies, today announced that it has nearly doubled the locations this spring where it will be offering its Fundamentals of Colour and Appearance (FOCA) one-day seminar that instructs quality control and assurance professionals, lab technicians, parts suppliers, pre-media and digital pressroom personnel and manufacturing specifiers on how to evaluate and approve colours in their workflows.

Colour experts at X-Rite Colour Services will host the FOCA seminar series starting in March in Charlotte, NC; New York City; Las Vegas; San Francisco; Portland, OR; Baltimore; Cincinnati; Nashville; Houston; St. Louis; Denver; New Orleans and Vancouver, Canada.

“We've added six stops in our seminar series compared with spring last year due to heightened demand from companies thatwant their teams to get a strong foundation in colour and learn best practices of colour measurement,” said Murphy Keeley, vice president of X-Rite Color Services.  “Our 2011 spring tour will include updated information on the latest developments in colour measurement technology.  The success of our series is based on providing convenient, top-notch training to our attendees in a cost-effective manner."

Taught by X-Rite colour experts, this industry-leading seminar was created to provide practical information applicable to all industries dealing with colour in easy-to-understand terms. X-Rite colour experts first give attendees a solid foundation in the basics of colour and appearance, and then provide instruction on how to measure, view and understand colour data.

The course requires no prior colour training and will address colour control for a variety of industries, including retail and apparel brands, business and consumer electronics, automotive, graphics arts, packaging and their related industries in plastics, coatings, and textile manufacturing.

In addition to the training, each attendee will receive an X-Rite Munsell Interactive Learning Kit that reinforces the lessons with worksheets, samples, and exercises, as well as X-Rite’s exclusive Fundamentals of Color and Appearance book that acts as a reference on colour in easy-to-read language. The seminar runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and includes continental breakfast and lunch.

Attendees should check if the X-Rite seminar can qualify as continuing education under certain accreditation programs.

The places and dates of the seminars are:

Baltimore - April 5
Residence Inn By Marriott Baltimore DT, 17 Light Street, Baltimore, MD  21202, (410) 454-8893

Charlotte - March 1
Charlotte Marriott Executive Park, 5700 Westpark Drive, Charlotte, NC  28217, (704) 527-9650

Cincinnati - April 14
Courtyard Cincinnati Covington, 500 West 3rd Street, Covington, KY 41011, (859) 491-4000

Denver - May 23
Denver Marriott Tech Center, 4900 South. Syracuse Street, Denver, CO  80237, (303) 779-1100

Houston - May 3
Courtyard by Marriott Houston West University, 2939 Westpark Drive, Houston, TX  77005, (713) 661-4660

Las Vegas - March 18
Courtyard Marriott, 5845 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV  89118, (702) 895-7519

Nashville - April 19
Courtyard Nashville, 2508 Elm Hill Park, Nashville, TN  37214, (615) 883-9500

New Orleans - June 7
Courtyard New Orleans Downtown/Convention Center, 300 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 (504) 598-9898

New York - March 7
NYC Seminar and Conference Center, 71 West 23rd Street – Suite 515 New York, NY  10010 (646) 336-4408

Portland - March 29
Portland Marriott DT Waterfront, 1401 SW Naito Parkway, Portland, OR  97201 (503) 226-7600

San Francisco - March 24
Parc 55 Wyndham, Union Square, 55 Cyril Magnin Street, San Francisco, CA  94102, (415) 392-8000

St. Louis - May 12
Courtyard St. Louis Airport/Earth City, 3101 Rider Trail South, St. Louis, MO 63044 (314) 209-1000

Vancouver - June 23
Renaissance Vancouver Hotel Harbourside, 1133 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC V6E 3T3, Canada, (604) 689-9211

GMG, a leading developer and supplier of high-end colour management software solutions, is now presenting its new Web site at www.gmgcolor.com. The design has been completely revised to create a modern look and feel. The "Home of Color" welcome page is the visitor's gateway to the world of GMG colour management, offering access to all the key information on the company's range of products and solutions.

The home page informs customers and prospective users about the latest press articles and postings on Twitter and Facebook. Visitors can easily call up the field of interest to them on the home page, without using the navigation bar.

The "Solutions" and "Products" areas in the navigation bar offer exhaustive product details and all the available information material for downloading.

The popular online tests of the GMG software continue to be available in the "GMG DemoArea". These so called Web demos allow anyone interested in the corresponding GMG products to get an online impression of their quality using their own data.

The GMG ColorServer (colour space conversions), GMG InkOptimizer (chromatic ink reduction) and GMG ColorProof (digital proofing) software solutions are currently available for testing.

"The convincing features of the new Web site are its attractive, invitingly open design and a more user-friendly structure," says Paul Willems, CEO of GMG GmbH & Co. KG. "At a click of the mouse, visitors get the information of relevance to them in next to no time. For instance, our video animations are an outstanding way of getting a quick and entertaining impression of how GMG's colour management solutions work."

Color-Logic has released a version of its popular Color-Logic Process Metallic Printing System specifically for inkjet printers.  The system enables licensed inkjet printers to produce striking metallic effects heretofore possible only on offset lithographic presses.  The inkjet version of the Color-Logic software is immediately available.
 
Announcing the new inkjet version of the Color-Logic Process Metallic Printing System, Color-Logic Director of Sales and Marketing Mark Geeves commented: "The inkjet version of our popular metallic color printing system has been tested extensively and produces outstanding results on wide-format printers manufactured by Epson, Roland and Mimaki, as well as flatbed printers manufactured by EFI VUTEk, AGFA, and Fujifilm.  Using the Color-Logic process, as many as 250 metallic hues, in addition to other special effects, can be produced effortlessly and consistently.  The process is particularly effective when used on machines capable of printing on metallic substrate and running white inks."