Indeed, spending time fixing problems manually would quickly see the margin in low-cost, quick turnaround digital print disappear – the automated fixes may not work perfectly every time, but they work well enough, most of the time, to not cause a problem. Chris Burns, systems solutions specialist at Agfa, admits that this level of automation could, technically, be transferred into the litho commercial arena, but that most printers would not want to take the risk.
"As soon as you come to editing the customer’s file, you have to ask yourself whether it is worth the risk of tampering with it," he explains. "Even simple things such as resampling a file to improve the resolution (there are routines out there to do that, as well as for colour-correcting) are risks. With the colour-correcting, what if there is a specific colour in that file requested by the customer and your changes make that colour are different one? You are liable for that change."
Another danger is that automatic fixes could correct elements that are design features rather than errors. Precision Colour Printing technical director Warren Irving explains that he could not hand over total control to a workflow, as he regularly sees design features that could be incorrectly labelled ‘wrong’ by an automated workflow. For example, he cites the case of an R&A job where the folio numbers were very large and it looked as though the page had been sent at the wrong size; in actual fact, these large folio numbers were part of the design. A pre-press operator could look at the context and realise it was a design choice (though Irving obviously double-checked with the client, too).
Hickling & Squires studio manager Matt Tatler agrees that trusting a workflow poses too large a risk. He says that while for very basic errors (like colour conversions) he will trust the automation, the human element of the workflow is – by and large – essential.
"Basically, you don’t want to give the technology so much rope that it can hang itself. You have to be 100% sure it can do the job properly. At present, it cannot do that for many of the processes," he explains.
Of course, if the client is double-checking everything that occurs and making the final approval of the artwork, then not being 100% correct all the time should not matter – the mistake will be caught. However, some printers and manufacturers argue that if you are going to go into every file and check the automation has done its job, you may as well save yourself cash and make the changes yourself.
Complex procedures
This is certainly the view of many of the manufacturers, who explain that basic automation is about as far as most printers want to take it. However, there are instances of more complex procedures that have been automated. One is where the workflow will seek out the high-res image from a database if the PDF contains the low-res version by mistake, a function both EFI and Kodak promote with Fiery and Prinergy respectively.
Heidelberg’s O’Connell says this function is available as a Heidleberg product, but Heidelberg UK doesn’t actively promote it, as it does not see how many printers would benefit – most UK printers will not be holding all their clients’ artwork files on a server, as that is a service only the big corporates are looking for. Hickling & Squires’ Tatler, one of Heidelberg’s customers, supports this, explaining that he keeps the option to autoseek the high-res files switched off, as the risk of the wrong image being selected is too high.
For O’Connell, the push towards ever-more automation in the workflow like this is ultimately pointless, as the extra cost of sorting each single problem automatically is "using a hammer to crack a nut". He argues that the real investment should be going into better-educating clients to submit proper files. Heidelberg is set to launch training programmes in the new year, which will include seminars for designers and other creatives on how to create print ready files, which will include some basic print process training.
"The workflow is doing a lot, but if you want it to do more, it will be hard to get a return on your investment. So education is the route we have to take now," he argues.
Others are not so sure that the future does not hold more automation, or at least that it should not be dismissed. EFI Graphic Arts Solutions general manager Stefan Spiegel says that you cannot rule out a future breakthrough that may enable workflow to be more automated.
"Look at where Apple has taken technology with Siri and voice recognition: no-one thought that would be possible, and yet here we are with it as a reality. I think that, similarly, there is likely to be more we can do with workflow in the future that currently seems unlikely or impossible," he explains.
Whether automation in the workflow increases will ultimately be down to customer demand. At present, it seems that the printers are happy to fix the problems as and when they occur and to cover themselves with web approval processes for their customers. If the margins are eroded even further in the litho market, then it may be that this willingness to spend time on pre-press manually may wane, but for now, the litho pre-press room is still a very human hive of activity.