Rochester Institute of Technology will offer a series of free Webinars in various imaging disciplines starting in January 2010. 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:


Mailing, Fulfillment and Distribution: Value Added Services for Printers

Friday, Jan. 15, 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, 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 11, 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, 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.