Has Proofing Gone ‘Soft’?

pP: What are the advantages and obstacles to soft proofing in a packaging environment?

Ranasinha—From the standpoint of business process and production control, there is a strong argument for soft proofing. That said, the effectiveness of soft proofing depends on whether the job has a color gamut that can be proofed remotely or soft proofed, whether the color gamut in a packaging environment has an ICC profile that can be displayed accurately on a monitor. As soon as you go outside the traditional gamuts with special spots colors, metallics, etc., the argument for soft proofing falls down. However, there’s a whole class of content proofing, where the vast majority of proofing for packaging and commercial work is done. For these sorts of applications, soft proofing is a godsend for many packaging companies and corporations because it allows many people to view and annotate on a proof in real time, and because it permits more proofing iterations to occur within a given time frame.