akereadies, improved customer satisfaction, less spoilage, time saving throughout production and as a marketing tool that can help win custom.
　　Several things have come together to make now the right time to adopt PSO: CTP, colour managed digital workflows; digital images; and the uptake of digital proofing to measurable standards. And most modern presses have some form of closed-loop control on the press console that, by using spectrophotometric or density readings, can keep the colour delivered consistently.
　　Hitting targets

　　There’s also been the development of tools to help implement the specification ranging from the methodologies, implementation guides and target data sets (from the likes of Fogra and Gracol) to the burgeoning software tools to help implement standard colour and then keep it in check. Firms that have been addressing this problem for several years, such as Mellow Colour with its ISOLitho product, have been joined by players such as Bodoni Systems, with PressSign. More recently, proofing providers have entered the market including GMG PrintControl (PrintWeek, Product of the Week, 18 October 2007) and the just released Oris Certified Press from CGS.
　　These latest products have all come from firms that have made their names in taking standard inkjet printers and characterising, calibrating and colour managing them to turn them into proofers. Proofing by its very nature needs to be consistent and to a known and controlled standard day-in, day-out. Previously, the press tended to be treated differently and time was spent ‘painting’ on press – that is trying to get a good match to a proof or the client’s interpretation of the job in their mind’s eye. With standards-based colour managed proofing in place, there is less disparity between what’s on the proof and what comes off the press, which should take away the thankless task of attempting to match the unmatchable.
　　“It’s about getting printers to think about their press in a whole new way – as an output device,” says Sherfield. “We’ve done it for years on proofers and film and plate processors. But never on the machine that brings in the bacon – the press.”
　　He points out that you do need to have that control all the way through the process to make it work. “You need a colour management policy. Even if you print to a standard, that’s no good unless you get reliable colour in.”
　　As was found when moving from film to CTP, PDF and digital workflows, the proce

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