Rochester Institute of Technology will offer a series of free Webinars in various imaging disciplines starting in September. Faculty, technical staff and alumni from RIT's School of Print Media and RIT's Printing Applications Laboratory will share their expertise in such areas as variable data printing, digital imaging, color agreement, assessing color measurement and process control in the printing industry. To register, visit www.seminars.cias.rit.edu and click on the Webinars tab.

The following is the complete list of Webinars:
Making Sense Out of the Forest Initiative Programs-Environment and the Paper Industry
Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2-3 p.m. EST
Speaker: Jim Kohler, RIT alumnus

This webinar will cover the various forest initiative projects, including Sustainable Forest Initiative and Forest Stewardship Council. Kohler, a graphic arts and printing consultant who has worked for both the printing and paper industries, will discuss the purpose of each organization, what they do, and the myths and realities of each.

Understanding Delta E
Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2-3 p.m. EST
Speaker: Steve Suffoletto, senior training specialist, RIT Printing Applications Laboratory

This beginner-level webinar will explain a Delta E or DE color difference. Whenever comparing a pair of colors numerically, DE will indicate the overall accuracy of the match. Suffoletto will discuss the basic DE formulas and make a distinction between a barely noticeable difference (jnd) and a maximum acceptable difference used for quality or process control tolerances for both process and spot colors.

Process Control in the Printing Industry
Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2-3 p.m. EST
Speaker: Steve Suffoletto, senior training specialist, RIT Printing Applications Laboratory

This is also a beginner-level webinar. It will look at the basic concepts of how process control is used to achieve repeatable and predictable color reproduction in printing. Without a controlled and stable process, performance results are unpredictable, causing late delivery schedules, excessive waste, poor productivity efficiency and sub-standard quality.

Variable Data Printing: How Far Have We Come?
Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2-3 p.m. EST
Speaker: Patricia Sorce, chair of RIT's School of Print Media and co-director of the Printing Industry Center

This beginner-level webinar will highlight the release of Sorce's new book, Personalization. It's the second in her series on the topic of variable data printing adoption patterns. She will compare the adoption of VDP applications in 2003 to those in the last several years, and will explore the reasons why we have not seen the explosive growth that was predicted in the early part of this decade. Sorce teaches in the areas of marketing research, buyer behavior and database marketing.

Digital Image Management and Workflow with Adobe Lightroom
Thursday, Dec. 3, 2-3 p.m. EST
Speaker: Christine Heusner, RIT alumna and faculty member in RIT's School of Print Media

Digital image management and processing, especially when working with a volume of images, requires both precision and efficiency. Adobe Lightroom offers many features and tools that simplify and streamline digital image workflow. This beginner-level webinar will explore the workflow process in Adobe Lightroom-from import and organization through image development and output-and its differences, similarities and integrations with Adobe Bridge, Camera Raw and Photoshop.

Mailing, Fulfillment and Distribution: Value Added Services for Printers
Friday, Jan. 15, 2010, 2-3 p.m. EST
Speaker: Twyla Cummings, Paul and Louise Miller Distinguished Professor in RIT's School of Print Media

The need to differentiate one print service provider from another is not only based on products or technology but also on the unique value of the provider as perceived by the customer. The benefit to the customer is in having one supplier responsible for managing both print and distribution, while the value to the print services provider is a continuous and steady flow of work. Services such as mailing, fulfillment and distribution come to mind. The focus of this webinar (suitable for all levels of experience) is to emphasize the opportunities for print service providers to diversify their product offerings to include non-print services. An additional focus is to address the benefits and the considerations of venturing into these business areas.

Cummings provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the areas of media industries analysis, media distribution and research methods. Her research is focused in the areas of media distribution and printing industry trends.

Assessing Color Measurement Instrument Capability
Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010, 2-3 p.m. EST
Speaker: Robert Chung, Gravure Research Professor in RIT's School of Print Media

Color management depends on printing process control. Printing process control begins with color measurement. This beginner-level webinar will define a number of important concepts (e.g., calibration, calibration reference materials, tristimulus integration, colorimetric parameters accuracy, precision, reproducibility, and inter-instrument agreement) and elaborate on these concepts with process control examples in the graphic arts. Participants will become more knowledgeable when using spectrocolorimeters for press/proofer profiling and printing process control.

Chung, a professor in RIT's School of Print Media, teaches technical courses in process control and color management, and has published more than 60 technical papers.

Color Agreement between Packaging Printing and Proofing
Thursday, March 18, 2010, 2-3 p.m. EST
Speaker: Robert Chung, Gravure Research Professor in RIT's School of Print Media

This intermediate-level webinar will cover the findings from a case study conducted at RIT with collaboration from Packaging Corporation of America, SmartColour, and the Gravure Association of America, regarding color match of packaging graphics between digital proofs and gravure prints. Chung will discuss the processes and technologies used to develop a method for comparing the color match, as well as the key findings that resulted from the case study.

History and Development of Digital Printing Technologies
Friday, April 2, 2010, 2-3 p.m. EST
Speaker: Howard Vogl, professor in RIT's School of Print Media

Digital printing is considered to be a recent development. However, the development of digital printing can be traced to numerous discoveries, some of which are more than a century old. This beginner-level webinar will examine important historic events that led to the development of several common digital printing technologies as well as discuss the basics of these technologies.

Vogl has experience in commercial, newspaper and digital printing operations, including work as the prepress and production manager for the regional operations of USA Today. At RIT, he teaches conventional and digital printing technologies and database publishing.