"The only questions are cost and customer demand," he adds.
At Quebecor, in addition to the DuPont Digital Waterproof, Gerber Impress and DuPont Digital Dylux devices are used to produce digital folded and trimmed double-sided proofs, says Charlton.
For Banta, Wills ranks the proofing systems as "good," "better" and "best" and identifies the different purposes they serve. "Good" is the DuPont Digital Dylux, a black-and-white duplexed laser copy used for bleeds, margins and editorial and graphic placement only. "Better" is the Kodak Digital Science 1000, a large-format inkjet proofer which produces a fully imposed, full-color, 300 or 600 (black-and-white) dpi proofs used for imposition, editorial and graphic placement and color breaks. The "best" is Fuji FirstProof, a CMYK ink-transfer proof used for color matching on press. Fuji FirstProofs, Wills comments, although not as high quality as Kodak Approval, serve as a better economical alternative. "We've had good luck with them," he notes. Rainbow, Iris and Kodak Approval proofing devices are all fine, he continues, as long as the operator "takes the time to calibrate the device, preferably with a spectrophotometer to take the guesswork out of the equation."