PSD Establishes Itself Worldwide with Productionserver 8

The ProcessStandard Digital (PSD) developed by the Fogra e.V. is successively established by Print Service Providers (PSP) for digital small, large and grand format printing worldwide. The “VFX Print Group” is leading the field in the industry by being the first company in Australia to be successfully PSD-certified. The certification has been conducted by our longstanding sales partner and DigitalPrint Expert (DPE) Jonny Rumney of Celmac Pty. Ltd.

 “Here in Australia, we are well aware of the advantages of a PSD certification. We´ve talked with Bill Apostolidis, General Manager at VFX Print Group, and he was quickly convinced that a PSD certification will have many benefits for his company. The training and audits, as well as the final examinations were comprehensive, but the overall results speak for themselves. All results are grade A,” said Jonny Rumney DPE and State Manager New South Wales at Celmac Pty. Ltd.

“Our preparations involved reviewing our entire print environment, not just the machinery,” stated Bill Apostolidis, General Manager at VFX Print Group. “It’s been a really worthwhile journey that’s strengthened our broader business processes as well. Our customers have noticed the improvements and we’ve seen a sizeable growth in word of mouth recommendations.”

The full range of digital printing formats has been covered by this certification for the first time. Starting from small format employing an HP Indigo PDF (3550), to large format on an HP Latex 260 right up to grand format on a Vutek UltraVu 5330, all print results have been graded with an A. This has never been achieved before in the history of the PSD.

"Level A for all three tested printing combinations, covering both large and -small format printers, this has so far never been achieved in a PSD certification. This excellent result was realized in a media-relative workflow, demonstrating that this new approach of color communication, established by PSD, works remarkably well,” said Berthold Oberhollenzer in charge of the DPE program at Fogra e.V.

In addition to the PSD audit, VFX also did an audit for 3 other machines for “Print Check”.
This standard utilizes the print component of the PSD audit for additional print conditions. Those were for the Vutek QS 2000, HP Latex 360 and the HP Latex 850. All again receiving the A rating.

Another key component was Inx Digital (triangle) ink. Both the Vutek QS 2000 and the Vutek UltraVu 5330 are both running Inx Digital (Triangle) ink, which demonstrates that the inks from Triangle are of an exceptional high standard and helped achieve the “A” rating.

“This is particularly exciting for digital printing of large and grand format projects,” said Bill Apostolidis. “We believe we are the only company worldwide with PSD certification for this size digital printing, so we are looking forward to helping our customers achieve a first-rate result, wherever they are in the world.”

All certification steps have been done with Productionserver 8, ColorGATE´s leading RIP Software platform. VFX Group is applying five licenses of Productionserver 8, two Ultimate, two Campaign Printing and a PS8 Digital Printing HP Indigo Edition.

“The Productionserver is the perfect RIP for PSPs interested in a PSD certification. The available functions, such as the control wedges which can relate to contract proof, validation print and PSD, are making it easy to achieve the PSD certification,” said Jonny Rumney.

To develop international binding color and reproduction standards and regulations has been an area of activity for a long time for ColorGATE. The Proof Standard Digital Module (PSDM) enables a PSD-compliant production along with additional standards. ColorGATE supports Fogra in their aim to implement PSD globally. For that matter, only three months ago ColorGATE Experts of our Technical Service and the Business Development Team have been certified or recertified as DigitalPrint Experts (DPE). A significant part of this certification is the PSD.

“Digital Print standardization is a very important to topic for ColorGATE. We believe that standardization in the digital printing environment provides great benefits for all involved parties, with the print buyer receiving quality assured printing goods and the service provider that obtains output quality verification and process certainty prior to customer acceptance .With a PSD certification, the PSPs are able to stand out from their competitors, by showing their improved capabilities in terms of color production quality. We at ColorGATE are backing this matter by developing RIP Software solutions such as the Productionserver, which can be easily extended and operated to produce  in a PSD-compliant way on a daily basis,” said Thomas Kirschner CEO at ColorGATE.

PSD belongs to a long series of industry standards “Made in Germany”, which have been established worldwide or are in the process of being globally established. An industry-wide standardization has many positive ramifications, especially for the print industry, such as waste reduction and the reduction of unnecessary production stops due to the benefits of a standardized production workflow.

“We’re really proud of having achieved this status,” said Bill Apostolidis. “It demon-strates how serious VFX is in offering a high-quality product with perfect colour vibrancy and consistency for all of our digital printing projects.”

Here is a little sum-up of PSD advantages:

Technical benefits of the PSD

• The PSD constitutes criteria to make digital prints comparable in order to reduce the complexity of digital printing, no matter what digital printing system or substrate was used
• Consistent colors through reference color spaces: the PSD offers a set of rules to compare prints on differently colored substrates: the medial relative evaluation
• Permanent predictable printing results through sustainable quality assurance methods

Commercial benefits of the PSD

• Standardized production workflows minimizes the risk of unnecessary production stops
• The reduction of produced wastage

Corporate benefits of the PSD

• Faster and simpler approval process with the customers
• The PSD quality seal offers the opportunity to stand out from the competition in a positive way. Like the ProcessStandard Offset (PSO), the PSD will become a well-recognized international standard for the digital printing sector
• Subsequent claims for compensation with respect to the print quality can now be decided on the basis of the PSD – no more decisions based only on the subjective color perception of the customers, but on the quality inspection according to the PSD

If you are now interested in PSD, you can contact Fogra e.V. or ColorGATE at any time to speak through the necessary steps (like audits) for a successful PSD-certification.