New service gives colour reproduction a major quality boost

The Colour Management Service (CMS) overcomes the problems inherent in ensuring predictable colour reproduction both throughout the production chain, and across different printers, different presses, different papers – even different media: for mail order clothing catalogues, for example, it is vital to match the colour on the page to the colour of the fabric. It combines a unique set of software tools and specialist consultancy skills to bring full control to colour reproduction, smoothing and shortening the production process and eliminating expensive errors and reworks.

“For our customers, consistency is synonymous with quality, and it’s hard enough to maintain consistency from designer’s screen to final product, let alone across multiple presses in different countries”, says Miika Jokinen, Assistant Vice President, Technical Services. “This service brings a formal methodology to the whole process, to ensure our customers get the very maximum value from their chosen medium.”

CMS spans the entire production process, from the translation of the RGB colours on the designer’s screen to the CMYK inks on the printed page, through prepress quality evaluation to analysis of the final printed product. For customers who want to take full advantage of the company’s expertise, M-real also closes the loop with a quality assurance service, involving on-site quality monitoring by its own personnel.

The benefits of CMS extend to meeting advertiser expectations, too, helping to protect a crucial revenue stream for publishers: proofs can be approved with the confidence that the final result would be the best match.

At the heart of the service is the process of selecting and implementing International Colour Consortium – ICC – profiles. These are based on ISO standard printing conditions, and ensure that what the designer creates on the screen is reproduced faithfully on the printed page.

The new service is primarily aimed at users of M-real’s Galerie Papers who can utilize the full benefit of applying Galerie ICC-profiles./ins

Figure text 1 :
The Colour Management Service combines a unique set of software tools and specialist consultancy skills to bring full control to colour reproduction
© M-real www.m-real.com

Figure text 2 :
For our customers, consistency is synonymous with quality, and it’s hard enough to maintain consistency from designer’s screen to final product, let alone across multiple presses in different countries”, says Miika Jokinen, Assistant Vice President, Technical Services.
© M-real www.m-real.com

Note to editors: Employing over 14,000 people, M-real is one of the leading paper companies in Europe. Through its worldwide sales network, M-real serves customers who mostly comprise publishers, printers, paper merchants, offices and carton printers and well-known consumer product companies M-real provides excellent wood fibre-based solutions for consumer packaging, communications and advertising end-uses. Together with its customers and partners, M-real develops solutions for demanding end-use, such as magazines, art books, brochures, direct mail, office papers, as well as packages for beauty and healthcare products, cigarettes, branded food and consumer electronics.

The company focuses on four core businesses: Consumer Packaging, Publishing, Commercial Printing and Office Papers. Map Merchant Group is M-real´s paper merchant.

Headquartered in Finland, M-real Corporation is listed on the OMX Helsinki Stock Exchange. Sales of the company in 2006 were EUR 5.6 billion. M-real is part of the Metsäliitto Group. With sales of EUR 8.5 billion, Metsäliitto Group is the eighth largest forest industry group in the world. www.m-real.com

For additional information, please contact:

Marjo Halonen, VP Marketing Communications, M-real Publishing

tel. +358 10 469 462
e-mail: marjo.halonen@m-real.com