Digital Ad Lab UK (DAL UK)

July 2006

Exponential-e Sponsor Update – please click here for further information

Monitor Proofing Initiative
Andrew Wilson and Marcus Kirby kindly gave us an update regarding the monitor proofing initiative. A paper was distributed at Ipex and various people have been asked to provide feedback.

The overall purpose of this initiative is to give people confidence to soft proof, which will aid more rapid adoption of the technology. The group is in no way trying to develop a standard but intends to generate a best practice sheet for the October DAL meeting.

The current best practice guidelines have been shown to the 7 major vendors in this market place and currently they seem very interested to participate in this programme. The group is also talking to other industry bodies such as IdeAlliance, Ghent, Fogra etc to see if these best practices can be adopted globally.

Apple/Intel Chip
Stuart Anderson from Apple gave a very interesting presentation on the Apple Intel Chip and what it means for the industry. Please click here for the presentation.

Quark/Adobe Q&A Session
A very interesting discussion took place, with both Adobe and Quark answering a variety of questions from DAL members.

A summary of some of the highlights follows:

Does Quark 7 offer full PDF support – Quark has invested significant amounts of money in this area and it should be far superior to any previous version of Quark.

What is the history behind the new Adobe PDF Print Engine – PDF is no such a cornerstone of the industry that Adobe decided that people should be able to output via PDF rather than Postscript. It is in no way the end for PS and it is expected to be around for many years yet. Kodak, Fuji and other vendors will be building this print engine in to their devices but it is not yet confirmed how the pricing, sales and upgrade model will work with each machine.

Soft proofing, can Adobe and Quark product help in the future?
Quark – version 7 has job jackets, colour management engine and is totally supportive of a digital workflow.
Adobe – they have colour engines across all applications that are consistent. The PDF Print Engine on a RIP can profile the press to improve soft proofing.

What are both doing about in-built pre-flighting?
Quark – Version 7 uniquely has an extensive rules engine built into the application through the JobJackets feature that enables "pre-flighting as you go". So you can add other tools onto the end of the workflow if you wish to do further pre-flghting but QuarkXPress 7 already takes care of a large portion of it for you. Are plug-ins, such as those from Markzware, available if required.
Adobe – have basic pre-flighting tool within InDesign and Adobe CS.

What is the status on backward compatibility with both products?
Adobe – they will try to allow as much backward compatibility as possible and will work with specific cases. However, as a general rule they wouldn’t go further than two versions.
Quark – policy is to save back one version, especially due to the volume of new features in Version 7. However, are happy to work with specific cases to facilitate further backward compatibility.

For further information on both companies, please visit:
www.adobe.com
www.quark.co.uk

Any other business

• The next meeting will take place at Digital Print World on Wednesday 18th October. Further details and timings will follow.

• Bryan Sunderland asked for the following information to be passed on:
  UK TAG (Technical Advisory Group) is being established with the aim of strengthening the UK contribution, through the BSI Committee, to ISO TC 130 Graphic Technology. A meeting of the group is scheduled for September 6th at BSI at 10.30. Please contact Bryan at sunbry@msn.com for further information.

Filetransfer.co.uk Sponsor Update
Chris Bird gave the group an update of current activity, which can be seen by clicking here.

Attendees that signed in:

Altan Fadil, Canon	Andrew Ritchings
Andrew Wilson, Unity	Andy Walker, Fuji
Annette Kilroy, Mack Brooks	Anthony Kay, ACCA
Antony Barrington	Chris Bird, filetransfer
Chris Cunningham, TMP	Daniel Leach, TMP
Dave Chapman, Pro2col	Dominic Hughes, ICP
Elizabeth Schumacker, Savvis	Fred Wood
Gavin Drake, Quark	Gio Canterella, Data Active
Graham Leeson	Graham page, Colorbus
Harvey Jones, Exponential-e	Hannah Newberry, DAL
Kurt Dressel, Vio	Laurie Pate, KPG
Marcus Lynch, Adobe	Martin Hamilton, Express KCS
Mike Palmer, Quickcut	Natalie Toner, Savvis
Nick Daniels, Canon	Nick Peart, Adobe
Richard Gambling, Zebra Online	Sarah Newcome, Exponential-e
Sean Briggs, Natmags	Simon Evered, B1
Steve Irving, MGN	Steve Moloney, The Gate
Steve Ricks, Mondas	Stuart Anderson, Apple
Sue Kingsley, Exponential-e	Thierry Callot, KPG
Tim Daly, Interoute	Tom Gent, TPT
Tony Fisher, TMP	Stephen Douglas, FEP
Roy Topp, APPA	Vince Pitman, Square
Marcus Kirby	Mike Dewhirst, Dev Zero G
Tim Cox, ROI	Gareth Perry, Eaglemoss