Pre-RIP color management for soft proofing

摘要

In an ideal situation, a color managed soft proof is generated by the same Raster Image Processor (RIP) that produces the final raster data for printing. In real-world scenarios, this soft proofing capability is often absent. To overcome this limitation, we developed a workflow using the Adobe PDF library for producing color managed soft proofs before incoming jobs from the web are sent to the RIP. This paper discusses color management challenges that presented themselves and how they were addressed. It also highlights a few specific cases where the separation into subsequent color management and transparency blending processes caused unexpected results and how they were dealt with. Such a system can be implemented as a cloud-based solution to provide end-customers with a quick, inexpensive and reasonably accurate preview of print products before the job is submitted.