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1998FAGAT
30 October, 1998 in Bangkok
Information Exchange Meeting
Mr. Jick-Seung Kim
President
The Korea Federation of Printing Industry Cooperatives (KOPIC)
Introduction
Current Status of Digitalization in Korea
Problemsof Full Digitalization in Korea
Future Trend to Full-Digitalization
Conclusion
Full Digitalization in Korea
INTRODUCTIONAs we approach the 21st century very soon, the process of digitalization in graphic communications industry needs to be analyzed and we need clear vision for the coming decade. Today, I would like to call graphic communication industry where we all belong toinstead of printing industry. Because full-digitalization goes beyond the limitation of printing media through paper. Of course, our discussion will focus on general printing Workflow of Computer-To Film, Computer-To Plate, and Computer-To Paper workflow especially on full-digitalization for Computer-To-Plate workflow, but it is inevitable for us to positively accept the trend for multimedia printing environment. Prepress technologies have never moved faster than 1990's. We have witnessed the analogue print manufacturing in most countries giving away to digital within a past few years. Internet and multimedia have expanded explosively which traditional printers or publishers could not even imagine about its unlimited communication possibilities. It is still confusing for most of the printers and prepress professionals how to integrate these new media, with their workflow and how much digitalization is necessary to serve their market.
With the influence of economic crisis in Asian countries, the ever changing digitalization technology gives more pressure to our industry. But, I also believe that efficient digitalization approach with informative view of the future can offer an opportunity to our industry.
I would like to start by observing current status of digitalization in prepress and printing industry of Korea. I will then summarize some problems and issues in the development of digitalization. Long term and short-term trend to approach full-digitalization has been discusses with some guidelines for adopting CTP in large-scale printers. Then I will conclude with some follow-up issues with this topic.
CURRENT STATUS OF DIGITALIZATION IN KOREA
Before I mention about full digitalization which usually understood as necessary step for Computer-To -Plate workflow, it is interesting to see how people in this industry has been reacted to the digitalization process foe the past few years. .
According to the Japan Association of Graphic Arts Technology (JAGAT) newsletter of June 1998, JAGAT defines "Full-Digitalization " as "PostScript arrangement of all text diagrams and image data that constructs a page " and " DTP for entire workflow or in other words, processing using full-postscript data ". And CEPS still seems to play a major role in Japanese prepares workflow. It is little different in Korea since many of the big CEPS configured printers who usually invested in prepares equipment earlier stage has already moved to postscript oriented workflow by adding some link system to be compatible with postscript or entirely to postscript workflow.
The key criteria to fulfill this definition are flexibility and productivity. Currently most of the color DTP works are done on Macintosh platform using QuarkXpress, PhotoShop, Illustator or Freehand based on postscript environment, but black and white text jobs are dominated by PC platform. And there are several Korean softwares such as Arehangul and many other word processing softwares which have better functions to handle Korean text than Microsoft Word or any other worldwide softwares. Flexibility is very important since there is still some problems in supporting PC jobs without error in the postscript prepress environment. Fonts issues should be also discussed here. Korea is one of the country where postscript fonts are extremely expensive. Since we also use Chinese characters together with Korean fonts, many fonts data consists of English and Chinese resources. Major fonts vendors such as SoftMagic, Yoon design and Seoul Systems, have more than 100 typefaces each and they release several sets of new typefaces every season usually. Fonts vendors sell Truetype fonts at a very low price and distribute screen fonts free of charge and sell postscript fonts at extremely high prices. It may not cause a big trouble for printers but for the service bureaus where they have to offer output service for all kinds of the fonts, it is a headache. In many cases, investment on fonts exceeds three to four times of the investment on Rip for their imagesetters.
Currently released CID fonts are available at 1/10 of regular PostScript fonts price and the needs for PDF is increasing. Adobe also surveyed most commonly used fonts vendors and typefaces for Macintosh and Windows platform and made a contract to include in their CID fonts library and to distribute together with Adobe softwares in the future.
Most common color printing job procedure of today flows like this; client provides image originals and digital files to service bureaus or printing companies where prepress job is also available. Here, clients can also include creative agencies since creative agencies usually does not equipped with electronic prepress equipments. Images that have to be scanned by drum scanners come as original formats and other images are scanned by flat bed scanners at customer site and delivered as digital format. External hard disk drive, Jazz, Zip drives and CDs are most commonly used, and Internet or on-line service is occasionally used to deliver text and layout change. Clients usually do layouts. For clients who bring regular or volume job, service bureaus pick up the data and images at clients' side either by sales representative or using quick delivery service. The problem here is that neither client/designer nor service bureaus like to use Pre-Flight checking softwares. Service bureaus posted or prepare leaflets asking the guidelines for preparing page jobs such as color separations setting of photoshop files, trapping setting in QuarkXpress, page set-up, fonts available etc. And the operators at the service bureaus open file and check few things according to their rule of thumb. They often say that it is faster and simpler to check by their eyes but main reasons of not using pre flight cheker is that the need pre-flight checker and the softwares are not recognized widely. Flight Checker was localized by DTP House, but they could not sell enough copies to get the attention of the market. Service bureaus also started to use some imposition softwares as the large format imagesetter installation grows. For the service bureaus stripping is done to save the film loss but imposition is usually done manually at the printing house. Once films are produced, service bureaus get external proofing service to show to their clients. Presses proofing using recoated PS plates is widely used at a very low price unless other proofings are indicated. For printers exporting to other countries often use dry proofing such as Agfa's Press Match Dry or 3M's Match print for contract proofing. Client side using laser printers such as QMS but corrections does layout proofing and changes often occur after receiving color proof stage. Installation of the plotters was also increased a lot after DRUPA'95. HP 750 and Encad's NovaJet was popular but the market has been replaced by HP'sCP2000 models. But it does not mean that these plotters are used for proofing. More than 95% of these plotters are used for poster printing application not for proofing application. For a little correction on texts, both service bureaus or printers does not charge extra cost for modification on films usually because of the competition.
Let's see where we are in the digitalization process of Computer-To-Plate workflow. Before the end of this year, it is forecasted to have maximum 5 units of CTP will be installed. Currently one is installed but not yet running. Considering around 900 to 1,200 CTP systems installed worldwide, Korea is rather late to adopt CTP. It is due to its high cost of ownership, and the full-digitalization was not established in the big prepress and printers. There are several CTP systems available from the market and the big printers who may adapt to this workflow earlier than any other companies usually prefer full automated system such as automatic plate loading and on-lime processing system. According to the industry survey, it is forecasted that around 30 printers and newspapers are considering adopting CTP into workflow within 2 years. CTP is well received by variety of market segments, including business forms, catalogues, directories, documentation, labels and newspapers. After 1996, the peak year of imagesetter installation, installation of imagesetters are decreasing not only by the economic crisis but also by the maturation and over competition among service bureaus. But the printers have not invested in prepress as they invested in press. Large printers with more than 50 employees, invested a lot in new press machines in the past few years, now they still have to pay to the leasing company at much higher exchange rate. Compare to heavy investments on press machine, they have only one or a few units of imagesetters.
PROBLEMS OF FULL DIGITALIIZATION IN KOREA
Already a lot of documents are moving in PDF formats. Especially English documentation of manuals, product and marketing information among multinational companies and the documentation downloaded from Internet are in PDF format. People realize how efficient and flexible it is. But currently, when these PDF documentations are going to be translated into Korean and printed, there is no solution yet until Korean driver for PDF is ready. Once the files are changed into PDF, it usually does not need to go back to former application. However, it is page oriented and when there is a lot of changes within and between pages, users may prefer to work in regular application software. The flexibility which can go back and forth between application where file was generated and PDF can be requested to the developer.
These days, every Korean in every industry blames their problems for IMF. It is true especially for the printing industry where economic influences hurts directly. There will be a delay in digitalization because of the financial problems. But it will also help to screen all the possible technologies more carefully if they are preparing the workflow improvement with minimum investment such as Rip upgrade to increase productivity or implementing to plate-ready page jobs.
Most softwares, hardwares for this digitalization is imported from Europe, Japan and United States. Many system solution providers were already disappeared. It is more important to work with dedicated system provider than before.
Proofing is the most troublesome part in digitalization process. There are a lots of quality proofing devices available for contone (continuous tone) and halftone methods. Besides the quality to match with press proof, price for the equipments and consumables are equally important issue. Also universal driver to drive any proofer should also be considered in the CTP workflow.
FUTURE TREND TO FULL-DIGITALIZATION
In a long term view point, even though the PDF is still in an introductory stage and many development should be accompanied, future approach to full-digitalization should focus how and when to make PDF part of each companies workflow.
Most important thing in the future trend to full-digitalization seems to be PDF even though PostScript is going to be the standard for digital printing workflow.
To be the full-digitalization workflow more productive, incoming files whether it is PostScript or not needs to be interpreted into PDF as early as possible in the workflow and they can be viewed, edited, organized and proofed quickly before it is sent for output. For service bureaus, advertising agencies, production agencies where they face a lot of price competition, PDF oriented workflow enabling them to differentiate their service from regular PostScript oriented film output service to offer diverse multimedia output service without additional investment.
First it is important to have enough experience and know-how with PostScript based electronic prepress environment and to build PDF compatible workflow.
In Korea, the trend of the digitalization seems to move into two ways because of the unique situation mentioned above. First, for service bureaus and digital imaging companies, it seems to develop to provide multimedia production and Computer-To Paper, on-demand printing workflow. Mainly because these market segments can't equip with Computer-To-Plate and they can't meet with diverse clients group easily.
And the other trend of digitalization is establishing Computer-To-Plate workflow among the large printers and newspapers.
CONCLUSION
Closing this presentation of how to approach full-digitalization in Korea, I think the results of adopting full-digitalization should be emphasized before the procedure of digitalization. What to get by Computer-To-Plate and Computer-To-Paper is a better quality, better turnaround and better return on Invest. Marketers and Communication creators will require more unique and diverse print output and there can not be one magic solution or procedure to fulfill these needs. Each segments and companies should approach digitalization according to their customer's needs and establish their workflow as open and flexible as possible.
For this presentation, statistical data are missing and in-depth survey to analyze current status of digitalization in every stage of prepress, press and post press has to be followed. Also case studies on successful full-digitalization among FAGAT member countries can be helpful to build the effective approach. I took the macro view point to see the full-digitalization in Korean graphic arts industry and a series of study on each segments of commercial printing industry, prepress industry, small and quick printing industry should be followed.
After IPEX'93 and DRUPA'95, there was a boom for installing imagesetters in Korea so does the large format 4 color press machines. People were happy about the new standard prepress workflow of scanning images with drum scanners, using Quark Xpress on Macintosh for editing and layout and producing films by postscript imagesetters until very recently. CTP was not a serious issue to consider rather Computer-To-Paper workflow was more hot subject to discusses especially with the introduction of Indigo E-Print.
However, after IMPRINTA'97 and IGAS'97, people started to realize that Computer-To Plate environment is not far away from us, and big printers are now considering to integrate with their workflow seriously. Even though there are sill some group of people who resist digitalization, most people has o accept the digitalization to take the advantage of production efficiencies to meet the competition and customer's demand
Full-digitalization can be applied from design on the computer stage to pressroom where ink keys are being set by digital consoles or even further to digital binding stage. It is certain that digitalization will continue to develop but it does not have to be full-digitalization in every stage to be most effective and efficient since the conditions of each printing related company? Situation is different. But anyone in our industry can benefit from establishing full and flexible digital workflow, which is ready to go web. Therefore, I would like to define full-digitalization as "establishing digital workflow which enables to go directly to film. Plate, paper and other media ".
Most PostScript fonts vendors do not provide downloader, they visit the customer and download by themselves. In this sense, the release of CID(Character Identifier) fonts is a good sign for the flexible open full-digitalization process. CID fonts are a new format of composite Type I fonts that better address the requirements of Far East markets according to Adobe. Because CID fonts consists of a large fonts file that contains all the character outlines and a small CMap file that contains a list of characters, encodings and character identifiers. CID-keyed fonts have a much simpler structure, they use less memory and the interpreter can retrieve and restitute character outlines much faster. Some advantages over OCF (Original Composite Format) are smaller font size, easier installation, greatly improved performance with Level 2 size or higher Postscript interpreters, flexible encoding to allow easy addition or modification of character sets, and compatibility with a wide range of PostScript language devices and host platforms. It is getting practical to convert image or page for internet, CD-ROM or for PDF with several softwares being launched. For on-demand printing, files are compressed and sent to remote area by network. PostScript files using CID fonts can be compressed without quality loss.
The development for Chinese and Korean support in Adobe Acrobat PDF was delayed than other language. According to Adobe Korea Inc., Korean driver support for PDF will be available in spring of 1999. Many developers are complaining about its delay and some softwares companies already developed softwares which can convert QuarkXpress or other editing software into PDF in Korean editable format.
Many of the opinion leaders in graphic communication industry seems to agree that Adobe's Portable Document Format(PDF) will be the new standard format for full digitalization. PDF is a device-independent file format containing all the resources necessary for output including text, fonts, and images. A PDF file can be viewed and edited at any time separately from the application that was used to create it. They keep pages independent for easy reordering or reuse in other media. They can contain built-in job tickets that use PDF's Portable Job Ticket Format (PJTF). PDF files provide reliable and predictable rendering that goes well beyond PostScript. While PostScript is inherently a print-based technology, PDF is a highly self-contained, flexible format for a wider range of output.
PDF is seriously being implemented among the publishers where they have to produce multiple output of different media. According to one of the PDF software developers and former prepress system provider, PDF can immediately saves time and money. For example, for the publisher who prints weekly magazine in paper and also publish Webzine through WWW or the education material publishers who also produce CD-ROM, internet and print media of same source with a little bit of modification are very much interested in this format.
Publishers can add values to their publication by offering additional format of media to their print publication without much investment.
In terms of digitalization status in printing procedures of CIP3 (corporation of int'1 prepress, press, postpress) digital ink key setting is started to be adopted, but manual ink key setting is used mostly.
Digitalization is also actively proceeded in binding process.
Since economic crisis started last October, and under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) program, most of the printers are suffering to pay for their recent investments on press machines and to the price increase of the materials. Even some large scale printers have been bankrupted and machines were being sold to foreign countries as a second hand. Indeed, the digitalization parade has been weakened since IMF. But, the digitalization to improve productivity gets wide attention these days.
In a short term view point, for the successful approach to full-digitalization especially for CTP, printers should check the following list.
Second, printers needs to receive incoming works in digital format to make their CTP systems keep running. Promoting their customers to bring as digital as possible and as correct as possible is important. Using Pre-Flight checker is a necessary step to bring correct data.
Third, printers should produce enough digital plates to make their press (at least 3 presses are required) busier than before adopting CTP. Fourth, experiencing digital proofing and training the customers are important.
Fourth, experiencing digital proofing and training the customers are important.
Fifth, taking a progressive, step by step, approach will be very important. Adopting softwares to make the plate-ready pagination, building OPI and file server, working with color management by using imagesetters of same format of platesetter which will meet the press size will smooth the adoption. It is also important since film will be used in the future and flexible back-up system is always necessary.