Desktop links are changing the color market

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov, 1989 by Robert Virkus

Desktop links are changing the color market

When desktop publishing brought typesetting in-house, the inevitable compromises were slight and went unnoticed by the average reader. Desktop publishing software has progressed to the point where the type produced is every bit as pleasing as traditionally set type. But producing color is a different copy.

Color at any production level is compromise. What you see is never what you get. The bet you can hope for is an acceptable approximation. Perfectly reproducing the entire spectrum of visible light is not possible with any medium. The question, therefore, is, "How much of a compromise am I willing to accept?"

The three vendors of high-end color pre-press equipment--Crosfield, Hell and Scitex--are betting that the minimum color quality level a publisher will accept is that produced by their systems. It's the quality publishers and readers are accustomed to. And it's certainly not thought of in terms of compromise.

Crosfield, Hell and Scitex all recognize that desktop equipment performs many of the traditional page layout and production jobs well. They see a new role for themselves unfolding in the marketplace: providing the link between evolving desktop typography and page geometry, and their own sophisticated computerized pre-press color systems.

But are the vendor links now connecting publishers to leading-edge pre-press technology a color supplier's answer to maintaining business, or the intermediary steps to total publisher control or color?

The systems

In an electronic era, art and design ideas are developed before being committed to a physical medium such as paper or film. Now, the goal is to link art and design with production, which should control costs and reduce turnaround times. Each of the three big vendors has its own approach.

* Scitex was the first to link te desktop to high-end pre-press with Visionary, in March 1988. User-generated information, including page geometry, text, graphics, four-color sizing and cropping specifications can be sent to Scitex's Gateway, an imaging workstation (normally operated by a service bureau) that converts the electronic layout into an electronic mechanical. The mechanical is then output on the Scitex Response system. Three primary software elements make up the Visionary system: a proprietary version of Quark XPress, Bit-stream fonts and Scitex tools.

Scitex is the only vendor relying on a proprietary version of a desktop layout software package. Quark has added a specific set of enhancements for Scitex. Although Scitex has announced a PostScript interface, V.I.P. (Visionary Interpreter for PostScript), it is nor a primary piece of the puzzle. "We haven't seen the requirement for a straight PostScript interface, says Ken Hurtubise, Scitex's director of industry marketing. "V.I.P. is sold as an adjunct to our Visionary products for those with specific requirements for PostScript," such as importing graphics into a Scitex system.

* Crosfield Electronics Ltd. joined the pre-press link market when it purchased Lightspeed, Inc. The Color Layout System (CLS), integrated with the Studio 800 line, is a Macintosh II-based professional design station. Lightspeed's target market has been professional designers, in-house corporate art departments, advertising agencies and pre-press service companies. "We are not after the desktop link," notes Nick Hadden, vice president of marketing at Crosfield Lightspeed, Inc. "The system as a graphics design tool is its justification, not its link."

However, for desktop publishers, Crosfield has announced StudioLink, which allows pages created on Letraset's Ready, Set, Go! and Xerox's Ventura Publisher to be transferred to a Crosfield Studio pre-press system, where pages can be integrated with high-quality color images. PS-Scripteris Crosfield's PostScript RIP (raster image processor) and allows any PostScript page to be integrated with graphics in Crosfield's Studio system.

* Hell Graphic Systems, Inc., revealed its desktop-to-pre-press link, a cooperative agreement with Aldus Corporation, in May at the Magazine Publishing Congress. Hell and Aldus will work together to develop a link based on the Open Prepress Interface (OPI) specs proposed by Aldus, and Page-Maker Color Extension for the Macintosh.

Being last to the desktop link, Hell has seen some of its competitors' development problems. "One reason we chose to work with Aldus," says Joel Friedman, product manager for Hell, "was we respected their approach--education and support. We watched the developments over the last year with Quark and Scitex, and LetraSet with Crosfield. There are three big companies in color and three big companies in desktop publishing, and we certainly don't look at it as picking up the leftovers.

"We are taking an open approach," adds Friedman, who says the agreement with Aldus is nonexclusive. That openness also leaves some challenges. "On day one of an installation we are going to help our customers take files in an open manner. That's why education will play such a critical part."