The manufacturer said Prismacolor Manager uses a step-by-step process that carries out rigorous checks on quality and consistency, verifies colour accuracy against recognised industry standards, such as those specified by Fogra and Idealliance, or user-defined targets and tolerances, allowing operators to compare and precisely replicate printed colours.
It enables users to easily confirm and visualise the colour quality of digital prints against a chosen target by clearly structuring the digital colour measurement process, simplifying how results are displayed and analysed, and collecting colour measurement results from different printers.
It also validates and grades the results of the analysis against defined standards.
Designed for anybody to use, the software shows the operator step-by-step animations of how to carry out colour measurements, from initialisation to generating reports.
It also helps to minimise errors either by automatically submitting the measurement charts with the correct settings to a Prismasync or Fiery controller-driven device or by displaying the correct colour quality settings on screen as instructions for the operator.
During the measurement, illustrations provide real-time feedback and checkmarks after correctly carrying out each step.
Using Prismacolor Manager, operators can validate colour quality in four ways: From a Prismasync print server a test chart is printed with the correct settings and measured via the digital press’ internal colour sensors. Validations are then uploaded to Prismacolor Manager. This whole process occurs automatically.
From Prismacolor Manager, an ID-coded test chart is automatically printed with the correct colour settings to a Prismasync- or Fiery controller-driven CYMK engine, and easily measured via a compatible X-Rite i1 Pro or iSis measurement device, linking the validation results to the test via the test ID.
An ID-coded test chart is downloaded from Prismacolor Manager and manually printed on any SNMP-enabled CMYK printer using the colour quality settings displayed in Prismacolor Manager. The chart is then measured via Prismacolor Manager using a compatible X-Rite i1 Pro or iSis measurement device and the validation results are linked to the test via the test ID.
Finally, a standard test chart for colour validation is measured via Prismacolor Manager for validation using a compatible X-Rite i1 Pro or iSis measurement device.
Jennifer Kolloczek, European planning, marketing and innovation senior director, production print at Canon Europe, said: “Validating and optimising colour consistency is essential for print service providers and is one of the most critical aspects of professional printing.
“Monitoring colour quality and ensuring that it is in line with industry standards can be very time consuming and complex and often requires a colour expert.
“For PSPs with more than one type of printer or printer supplier, the process of measuring and analysing colour consistency and quality across different devices can be even more challenging.
“Prismacolor Manager provides PSPs with a simple, printer-agnostic tool to support these processes. And its easy-to-use user interface enables operators at all levels to carry out the validation.”
Prismacolor Manager will be available from May via Prisma Home, which houses all Prisma Cloud tools and applications.
