Has Proofing Gone ‘Soft’?

Sweeney—A proof used to be an object; now it’s an activity. Color trade shops used to charge for a scan—four pieces of film and a proof. That was the deliverable for the activity of scanning. With the advent of computer-to-plate, the hard copy proof was the deliverable and all the activity was embedded in that hard deliverable. In our view, virtual proofing is not a technology issue today. The act of proofing a file can be done by anyone anywhere. The technology is proven and capable, and the software is cheap, off the shelf. However, as I said earlier, in the packaging realm, there’s still a reluctance to give up that hard copy proof.