{"id":2114,"date":"2025-03-31T08:44:51","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T07:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/?p=2114"},"modified":"2025-03-31T08:44:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T07:44:53","slug":"be-prepared-to-pay-for-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/?p=2114","title":{"rendered":"Be prepared to pay for innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\" It\u2019s fair to say that people of a certain age in the printing industry can get a bit confused about software. This is not surprising: software is invisible, it\u2019s something you\u2019re told you have to have if your platesetter is to work efficiently. Software\u2019s vital for your digital press and you have to have it to check incoming PDFs, manage workflows and job queues etc. Information technology in general and software in particular is a facilitator. Software provides services the value of which cannot easily be quantified. This may be baffling to many printing company owners, but software efficiencies keep bringing down the carbon footprint of print through efficiency enhancements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You pays your price and you takes your chances, so they say. Obviously the price you pay should be based on the value that tech provides to your business and what you can afford. But as well as what the product does for the money, the price you pay should reflect the value of the support and service you get from the service provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Software development has been the biggest concern in the prepress business for a long time and for decades we\u2019ve been reasonable happy to pay for it. That might be because people didn\u2019t fully understand the workings and nuances of what they were buying. After all, it\u2019s not possible to price software by the litre or the square metre as can be done with substrates, ink and plates. But these days software advances and innovations are taking a back seat to advances in both printing plates and inks, to materials science which is also helping bring down print\u2019s environmental impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A glance at the trade press will tell you materials science is definitely where all the action is. It\u2019s easy to compare plates and inks like for like so price squabbles seem to be more common than they used to be. Bickering over the price of plates, ink or substrates is simpler with tangible materials for which the pricing should not be opaque or confusing. Materials are easier to compare than software products, but we should keep in mind that for both materials and software the cost of research and development (R&D) is built in. It was a given with software that you pay for the development of upgrades and functionality improvements and the same is true for plates, inks and substrates, especially if those improvements drive down the industry\u2019s carbon footprint. So be prepared to pay a little more to ensure the continued evolution of the materials you buy. R&D is the only way our industry will keep evolving and moving forward, whether it\u2019s the development of preflight software, or an as yet uninvented imaging system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was produced by the <\/em>Verdigris Project,<\/em><\/a> an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print\u2019s positive environmental impact. This weekly commentary helps printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: <\/em>Agfa Graphics<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>EFI<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Fespa<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Fujifilm<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>HP<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Kodak<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Miraclon<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Ricoh<\/em><\/a>Splash PR<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Unity Publishing<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>Xeikon<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please also include the Verdigris logo and a link to this website. If you don\u2019t already have our logos, you can get them by downloading the <\/em>\u201cPublishers Bundle\u201d<\/em><\/a>. And don\u2019t forget terms of the Creative Commons license at the footer of the site. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner It\u2019s fair to say that people of a certain age in the printing industry can get a bit confused about software. This is not surprising: software is invisible, it\u2019s something you\u2019re told you have to have if your platesetter is to work efficiently. Software\u2019s vital for your digital press … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2115,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114\/revisions\/2115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaldots.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}