Kodak Proofing Software is an application from

Eastman Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

for managing and controlling the process of

Prepress proofing A contract proof usually serves as an agreement between customer and printer and as a color reference guide for adjusting the press before the final press run. Most contract proofs are a prepress proof. The primary goal of proofing is to serve a ...

. It supports the

Veris printer The Veris printer is a medium format (4 up) 1500 DPI color inkjet printer manufactured by the Graphic Communications Group of Eastman Kodak, which is used for digital Prepress proofing. A refinement of the Iris printer, the Veris also uses a continu ...

, Kodak Approval and various

inkjet printer Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper and plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range from small inexpensi ...

s from

Epson Seiko Epson Corporation, or simply known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer printers and information- and imaging-related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano ...

and

Hewlett Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

. The four dots: blue/yellow, red/green used in the splash screen and application icon are a symbolic representation of the

Lab color space The CIELAB color space, also referred to as ''L*a*b*'' , is a color space defined by the International Commission on Illumination (abbreviated CIE) in 1976. (Referring to CIELAB as "Lab" without asterisks should be avoided to prevent confusio ...

central to

color management In digital imaging systems, color management (or colour management) is the controlled conversion between the color representations of various devices, such as image scanners, digital cameras, monitors, TV screens, film printers, computer printer ...

technology.

History

Kodak Proofing Software is derived from the original Creo software used to control the

. In 2005 Kodak purchased Creo and the software first became ''internally'' known as Kodak Proofing Software, whereas Kodak Veris, Kodak APPROVAL and Kodak MATCHPRINT Inkjet are the proofing solutions marketed to customers. Veris 1.6 was released in 2004 by Creo. Much of the actual functionality of the Veris printer is actually embedded in the Veris software. Compared to conventional drop-on-demand inkjet printers the Veris hardware is quite 'dumb' relying on the controller software for most of its high level functions. The Creo Integris proofing solution for drop-on-demand printers was a re-marketed version of software from Best. Best was later bought by EFI.EFI Color Print Management Software
/ref> Kodak Proofing Software 3.0 was released in fall 2005 which added support for the Epson Stylus Pro drop-on-demand inkjet printers. This was used to replace the previous Integris software. During the acquisition of Creo, Kodak Polychrome Graphics (KPG) had their own proofing solution for inkjet printers known as MATCHPRINT ProofPro, but Kodak decided to replace it with the Veris derived software instead. The trademark MATCHPRINT came from the Imation analog and thermal proofing media. KPG bought Imation, KPG and Creo. The MATCHPRINT name was kept for brand recognition value. Version 3.1A was released summer 2007 which added support for the Kodak APPROVAL proofing system. Version 4.0 was released Summer 2009 which added n-color processing and a new calibration technology known as Precision Color. The previous 4-color technology, known as ColorZone, is not able to handle the new 6 and 7 color printers that have become popular because of their wider

color gamut In color reproduction, including computer graphics and photography, the gamut, or color gamut , is a certain ''complete subset'' of colors. The most common usage refers to the subset of colors which can be accurately represented in a given ci ...

. Also Precision Color introduced a progressive or iterative calibration method that is more accurate than the single shot calibration used in ColorZone.

Architecture

Kodak Proofing Software is a client/server solution. The server, written in C++ and C#, runs on Windows XP and performs all the fundamental processing of color images and control of the printers. The client, written in Java, runs on Macintosh and Windows computers and presents the user interface to the system. There is a many-to-many relationship between clients and servers. There are two connectivity modes for Kodak Proofing Software: with Direct Connectivity users can submit jobs directly from

Prinergy Prinergy is a prepress workflow system created by Creo in 1999 and maintained and sold through Kodak. It is a client/server system that integrates PDF creation, job proofing, imposition, and a raster image processor (RIP) into one unified workflow. ...

or Brisque workflow systems into Kodak Proofing Software; with Open Connectivity users can just drop press-ready

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

files into hot folders. With Direct Connectivity the

raster image processing A raster image processor (RIP) is a component used in a printing system which produces a raster image also known as a bitmap. Such a bitmap is used by a later stage of the printing system to produce the printed output. The input may be a page d ...

is performed by Prinergy, whereas with Open Connectivity it is performed internally by Kodak Proofing Software (using a subset of Prinergy technology).

References

{{Eastman Kodak Printing terminology Print production Kodak