Grabados Garcia - Spain
"What you see is what you get"
Grabados Garcia invest in MaxPro and Star Proof.
London (England), February 9 2012
Being able to supply Flexo plates of a high standard and to their customers exact specification is the goal of every repro house. Time and care must be taken from receipt of design and artwork through to delivery of the printing plate. The investment in new software and hardware to be able to handle the processes involved can lead to many hours spent determining the best solution for a particular business.
Based in Terrassa, Barcelona, Grabados Garcia is a Prepress and Platemaking company, serving the Flexo printing sector in Spain. Founded in 1983, the company has grown into a successful family business, whereby the quality of their work is of paramount importance and a personal pride is taken with the service provided to customers. By the beginning of 2010, owner Jose Garcia and his son Xavier had decided that the time was right to invest in new workflow and proofing solutions, with the aim of improving both the in-house Prepress operation and the customer offering.
“We wanted to improve the repro department by introducing professional tools specifically developed for packaging work” explains Prepress manager Xavier “and we wanted to ensure there were no costly and time consuming surprises at the Platemaking stage. We wanted the confidence to know that the investment would help streamline our workflow and that what we could see on the monitor and the proof would be exactly what we see on the plate”.
The search for the right solution began with an evaluation process of the packaging prepress solutions on the market and ended with the purchase of MaxPro and Star Proof. “We liked what we saw - the solution ticked all the boxes” said Xavier. The installation and training was carried out by MGV Color, supplier of colour solutions to the Graphic Arts market in Spain. Despite the fact that the operators were now learning a new way of processing files, their previous experience and knowledge of what was ultimately required on the plate ensured a successful integration.
“We have a professional team. With their experience, the operators know what is needed” explains Xavier. “With MaxPro, we work in an environment whereby we can be sure what we see on the monitor is exactly how the file will look at Platemaking stage. It has removed any guesswork - we see all the trapping, whether linework, contone or transparency areas. It is very clear and very simple for the operator to manage the files”.
As a final safety-net prior to Platemaking and as an important service to their growing customer base, Star Proof is used to produce colour accurate inkjet proofs on the departments Epson wide format inkjet proofer.
“The fact that Star Proof uses the same 1 Bit Tiff files that will be used to make the final plate gives added peace of mind and security” Xavier explains. “The dot shape produced on the proof is the same as the plate. In effect, we now deliver a proof that is correct in color, which shows trapping, overprints and the dot structure. The printer likes this and the customer likes this. Why? Because it is much more representative of the final print”.
Today, Grabados Garcia are happy that the right investment decision was made. Using MaxPro, the technical preparation of files is managed quickly and efficiently and with Star Proof, they produce an identical proof of the final print, dots and all.
“These new tools allow us to continue to be competitive and offer our customers the best solutions. There is no doubt and no surprises - What you see is what you get” concludes Xavier.
The benefits to Grabados Garcia:
Ease of use: MaxPro offers an easy to use, yet powerful set of tools for Prepress operators.
High Quality: Star Proof produces a proof of the final print, correct in colour & dot structure.
User friendly: Smooth integration and intuitive - resulting in a short learning curve.
No errors: The combined solution highlights any potential issues prior to Platemaking.
About Graphic Republik Graphic Republik, founded in 2008 and headquartered in London, England, has a distribution network covering Europe and Scandinavia. Graphic Republik specializes in pre-press, colour conversion and proofing solutions developed specifically for the Packaging sector of the printing industry. The software range is in use across the industry from Design and Prepress houses through to Flexo, Gravure, Offset and Digital printing companies
About the product range:
The MaxPro suite of applications is a powerful software solution designed for Prepress professionals.
MaxPro allows users to create automatic, semi automatic or manual traps to linework, contone and transparency areas. It has a bespoke monitor calibration system which faithfully reproduces spot colour rendition on-screen and allows for different dot gain curves to be applied on-the-fly.
With Max Step, users have the ability to interactively create bespoke step and repeat layouts, or use pre-defined die cut guides to automatically generate layouts according to the requirements of the printer or converter. It fully supports industry standard formats such as CFF2 and has the ability to produce final layouts for plate or cylinder.
MaxColor has been developed to automatically reduce separations and/or convert CMYK Separations to spot colours. The resultant print uses less ink, with more vibrant colours and a better quality registration whether printing Gravure, Flexo or UV Offset. When used with Digital presses, MaxColor takes advantage of any additional colors available (such as Orange, Green or Blue) to create a unique and vibrant print.
Silver Metallic Pro has been developed to automatically produce special White Ink separations for printing on Metallic foil or board.
Star Proof produces high quality halftone proofs on inkjet devices. It’s Actual Dot system replicates original screening and dot patterns at proofing resolutions. This system enables Star Proof to deliver contract quality proofs with a hard dot, sharp images, accurate colour and fine detail - just as they will appear on the press.
It has several features developed specifically to meet the requirements of the Packaging industry, together with an automatic spot colour calibration system, capable of matching over 97% of the Pantone library at a Delta e of 3.