Testimonials

The latest version of the high-performance color server, ZePrA 4, developed by the German company ColorLogic GmbH, has successfully passed its test period at alprinta GmbH. For some time now, alprinta GmbH has used Colorlogic‘s products ZePrA, CoPrA, Reprofiler and ColorAnt for their daily color management tasks. The ever changing print conditions in digital and screen printing, along with the special needs regarding exact reproduction of spot colors, calls for high-end color management solutions as one of the key success factors for alprinta.

Alprinta‘s Prepress Manager Jan Lukat tested ZePrA 4 before its official release:

“I really like to test new products for our production. The printing industry is changing constantly and only by adopting your production process to these changing requirements, allows you to maintain and optimize it. I also appreciate the quick response of the development teams responsible for the products we use here at alprinta. In addition, it enables me to share  feedback and ideas regarding future development which may benefit all users.“

Lukat explains how the ZePrA color server is used at alprintas‘ production in combination with ColorLogic’s CoPrA (ICC profiling): “Instead of repeating the general advantages of the ColorLogic products, I like to focus on new features in ZePrA 4 / CoPrA 3 which are so beneficial for our daily print business:”

SmartLink

Until now the standard process was to generate printer and DeviceLink profiles with CoPrA and re-profile with Reprofiler, each combination of printer, material and printing speed. The resulting DeviceLink profiles were used for color conversion in ZePrA. Dealing with ten different print materials along with three printers with three different speed settings ends easily in handling of 180 profiles (90 ICC and 90 DeviceLink profiles). The print results are outstanding, but whenever something changes such as material, settings, etc. then all profiles need to be redone to maintain the quality. Now, with the new SmartLink module in ZePrA 4 it is possible to share DeviceLink settings between CoPrA 3 and ZePrA 4. Now, the process consists of one “click“ and the amount of profiles are cut in half. ZePrA  automatically calculates the required DeviceLink profile based on the related output profile. Additionally, there are also pre-defined settings available for SmartLink.

Gamut warning

This new feature is one of my favorites. Especially in large format printing with its different kind of materials and reproduction capabilities. All clients require perfect reproduction of their CI colors and spot colors. Therefore, it is essential to know if those colors are able to be reproduced with the chosen settings. With ZePrA, it is possible to define a variable for DeltaE2000 (deltaE2000 fits nicely to human color prediction) to track if the color shift is good enough to continue with the print or not. This goes very well together with the new Minimal Compression rendering intent in CoPrA 3, which allows the best possible nearly absolute colorimetric reproduction. Who can ask for more!

Transparency reduction

With the new Flattening options it is possible to reduce transparencies quickly either on single jobs or whole plates and ensure the best possible reproduction without running into problems with transparencies or spot colors. Daily print production has proven that reduction of transparency is required. Even working in a PDF-X/4-Workflow can lead to those unpredictable problem which can be solved now.

Report function

All  job settings may be stored manually in ZePrA by using the report function – in ZePrA 4 it is now possible to do this automatically and store it in a folder. I believe that this is essential to guarantee future reproduction and archive customer data. Thank you, ColorLogic, for realizing this customer request!

SaveInk

Finally, the most important point for all decision makers: Even if all topics mentioned are already more than helpful in daily reproduction work, you will enjoy the SaveInk module in ZePrA 4 and CoPrA 3 on top of it. I was able to realize approximately 20% ink reduction in 1000 print jobs without any loss of quality. Especially in large format printing where ink costs define the print costs – this could make the difference.  This function pays off from your first print job on. Additionally, with the different SaveInk levels you are able to define quality and rentability.

About alprinta: The German company alprinta GmbH is located in Leverkusen and has been successfully working in print and display production for more than 30 years. Their core competence lies in digital and screen printing as well as advertisement, displays and UV offset. Alprinta is one of the market leaders in the area of display advertisement. This success is based on over 50 motivated and highly experienced employees.

About ColorLogic: Founded in 2002, ColorLogic GmbH is a German company specializing in integrated services and solutions for color management that address well-defined tasks. There are many companies in the graphic arts industry that rely on ColorLogic. They have developed several solutions for color management, such as ZePrA, CoPrA and ColorAnt. Their technology has also been integrated into many solutions of other vendors serving the prepress and printing industry.

About ZePrA: A high-end color server for Mac OS X and Windows. The product supports DeviceLink and ICC profiles and offers conversion and optimization of complete PDF print data or images (PSD, TIFF and JPEG) via monitored hot folders. Therefore, ZePrA is the perfect solution for standardized color conversion and optimization (SaveInk, TAC reduction…) of any kind of data in the printing process.  Additionally, ZePrA supports CMYK, RGB, grayscale, Lab and multicolor and therefore can be used with all kinds of printing environments. Moreover, the color server sets standards in quality, performance and pricing.