Grand Rapids, Mich. – X-Rite, Incorporated, the world leader in color management, measurement and communication technologies, and GMG, a developer and supplier of high-end color management and proofing solutions today announced that they are jointly developing a new line of X-Rite branded automated print quality control and standardization solutions for the graphic arts industry.  The four new, wizard-driven solutions will allow print buyers and pressroom operators to follow a job from contract to delivery and ensure quality consistency and standards compliance. These solutions will support all of X-Rite's prepress and printing instruments, and will be offered exclusively through X-Rite's worldwide network of sales partners.

The new X-Rite PrintCheck and PressOptimizer portfolio will be unveiled to the public for the first time at the IPEX trade show (May 18-25, NEC, Birmingham, UK) on the X-Rite stand (Hall 10 stand D260)

The new, jointly developed solutions will include four different packages tailored to meet the stringent quality control and standardization needs of print buyers and printing professionals:

PrintCheck Reader: targeted at print customers and print buyers, this is a free downloadable software that lets users easily import print quality data for further verification of the printing quality by enabling a streamlined communication throughout the printing supply chain. In addition to the ability to remotely "watch over" their print jobs, print buyers can also supply their key accounts with PrintCheck Reader software, for improved, open and seamless customer relations from contract to print.

PrintCheck Review: targeted at professional print buyers (brand owners, advertising agencies, publishing houses, packaging designers) who want to be able to check the quality of prints themselves, PrintCheck Review is designed to be used in combination with an i1Pro spectrophotometer. PrintCheck Review supports the international standards ISO 12647-2 and 12647-3 (G7, SWOP, PSO), Japan Color as well as individual in-house tolerance metrics. 

PrintCheck: Designed to meet the quality-control needs of small to mid-size offset printing houses, PrintCheck is optimized to work with X-Rite's handheld spectrophotometers including 528, 530, SpectroEye and the EasyTrax and IntelliTrax scanning solutions. PrintCheck lets the printer know whether the press is operating within a defined standard. Based on one single measuring procedure, the software supplies all the relevant information concerning any given print job including printing density and print contrast, tone value increase and spread, primary and secondary colors, gray balance, ink acceptance, paper, slur and doubling.  PrintCheck also allows printers to compare various jobs, and run trends on job histories and press performance.

PressOptimizer: Ideal for mid size to large offset printing houses, PressOptimizer offers a very easy-to-use solution for effective process control and press standardization. PressOptimizer supports the ISO 12647-2, 12647-3 (G7, SWOP, PSO) and Japan Color international standards, as well as user-defined in-house tolerance metrics. Optimized to work with X-Rite's EasyTrax and IntelliTrax automated scanning systems, PressOptimizer can significantly increase print quality, even on older presses; it allows users to achieve the same colors on different presses, and lets them produce repeat jobs rapidly while cutting costs (by reducing paper waste and energy consumption).  Thanks to a wizard-driven interface to guide them through the entire standardization and process control process, printers can easily determine the optimum printing density, analyze the gray balance, measure tone value increase and spread, check primary and secondary colors, generate CtP correction curves, control ink acceptance, determine the optimum print contrast, and measure control wedges for daily quality assurance with the PrintCheck portfolio.

"We are very excited to be involved in the development of the next iteration of GMG's verification software portfolio, and to become the exclusive worldwide reseller for these solutions," comments Tom Vacchiano, X-Rite's CEO. "Through our partnership with GMG, we are expanding the functionality of today's automated verification offerings to meet the industry's increasing need for process control and standardization.  These affordable solutions will allow X-Rite's customers to take full advantage of the ISO standardization features in our product portfolio, resulting in increased quality and traceability for print buyers and brand owners."

"We at GMG are thrilled to be working with X-Rite to bring these solutions to the market place.  X-Rite's industry-leading workflows are a natural fit to the production reliability delivered through these affordable, intuitive software products," comments Paul Willems, GMG's CEO. "We believe that by working together, we can deliver state-of-the-art process and quality control solutions to the global printing industry community."

X-Rite will be in a position to start taking orders at IPEX.  All four solutions will ship in July 2010, and will be available exclusively through X-Rite and its global network of resellers.  PrintCheck Reader will be available as a free software download from xrite.com. The remaining packages will be available both as standalone software offerings, and also in attractively priced bundles with X-Rite's prepress and pressroom solutions.