Many commercial printers are starting to take soft proofing seriously. Not only has the technology pretty much come of age, but doing away with hard copy proofs is a great way to pull costs out of the workflow.

Multiple technologies have come together to make soft proofing a viable option, including monitor advances, the spread of digital colour management and people's overall confidence with working on screen. Many customers are comfortable with on-screen viewing of production files, but the colour accuracy obviously depends on the data characterisation and having a properly calibrated monitor. They also appreciate the reduced costs involved. Having a trustworthy on-screen version of the job is much cheaper than producing a printed version and biking it over to the client. If there are numerous people who need to view and approve the file, the costs go up with hard copy proofing, but are unchanged with the soft copy equivalent.

But even though the technology is robust enough for this application, and well proven in the market, a proper soft proofing system needs to be properly managed. Hardware must be calibrated, software routines understood and learnt and customers educated in how to use the new method for approving production-ready files.

This begins as usual with a thorough audit of the workflow to establish which customers and which jobs would make suitable starting points for a soft proofing strategy. It might be that customers are already clamouring for soft proofs, which makes matters simpler: it proves that soft proofing is desirable for those customers rather than being a bit of exotica for a single client. The workflow audit should consider the expertise available to you, not just from your technology providers but also in house.

The hardware needs, obviously, to be right, so make sure your monitors are up to scratch. One of the most impressive available is the Quato ProofView 700 proofing monitor developed by Quatographic Technologies in Germany. With a brightness of 700 candelas per square metre it is about twice as bright as competitors' models. Because it is so bright it can be used inside a viewing booth so that you can look at an on-screen proof and hard copy output simultaneously and under the same viewing conditions. This monitor is not cheap, however, coming in at around €3,000 (￡2,500), but the savings in hard copy consumables and improved workflow should mean that you get that back within a reasonable time.

Make sure it is possible to calibrate and characterise the monitor, whichever model you choose. If your customers or you want to inspect actual real-life dots you absolutely have to have a properly calibrated monitor. Do not doubt that unless the monitor can be controlled you are wasting your time with the whole idea of soft proofing. Colours will look different on screen and in print which rather defeats the point of a proofing system. A colour temperature of around 5,000K is what you want for print, but you may want 6,500K if you are doing a lot of photographic work. The level of monitor brightness should ideally match that of your viewing booth, particularly if you want to check screened dots. Whatever your viewing environment, make sure that you have enough light, say D50 or D65, which simulates daylight.

You should run some tests on prospective monitors before you buy. For instance, check for sharpness, without which you will not be able to properly view fine details. Make sure that flat tints really do look like flat tints, particularly over a large area of the screen. Tones should appear smooth and even and of course colours and greys should look right.

In addition to the monitors you also need dedicated software to provide you with the view files. There are numerous soft-proofing systems on the market, some of which are more feature laden than others. If you want automated preflight checking or to support collaborative proofing scenarios, you will need a more ambitious system because this type of functionality really has more to do with workflow automation than soft proofing. Companies to consider for this are Agfa, Kodak, Fujifilm and Screen. GMG, CGS, EFI and X-Rite are a few more high profile names. A less well-known name is Web Proof, an impressive Danish software developer. The company's entire focus is on soft proofing, particularly collaborative online proofing.

Soft proofing can save money and time, but the technology must be accurate and the customers confident enough to trust it.