We are a pre-press shop and do all of our proofing on an HP Indigo press. We work with many, many printers worldwide and these printers usually supply us with the actual printing stock. If the paper is coated and fits the descriptor of a #1 or #2 sheet we will proof to either the GRACoL or Fogra39 printing condition depending on what the printer specifies. We use ORIS Color Tuner for the color management of the files being proofed. Now with all the optical brighteners printers seem to be doing their own thing and there is no real workflow. It is a crapshoot out there. Especially with uncoated stock (and now coated stocks) being high in OBA content; hardly any papers fall within tolerances for any current print condition. Example: If a printer sets up their colour to Fogra47 on the actual printing stock that is not within the Fogra47 specification (because of paper white with high OBAs) what can we do as suppliers? Do we have to follow suit and set up on the paper as well? Does this not throw us out of tolerance to Fogra47 (because paper white will fail)? This scenerio seems to be happening more and more. We get proofs (mostly inkjet proofs) from the printer saying that their proofs do not match our proofs. We never receive any information as to how these inkjet printer proofs were made and it remains up to us to try and figure things out. I'm guessing that all printer colour set ups are done right on the printing paper - some sort of data set is generated, then an ICC profile is made and used for the inkjet proofs. None of this is communicated to us and not too many proofs come complete with colour bars for us to measure - frustrating to say the least. We set up our proofing on papers that are within the print specification (Fogra39 and Fogra47, for example). If the printer supplied paper falls within that specification we never have a problem. Papers outside of the specifications are a problem. We use the print target closest to the paper white of the printer supplied stock and allow the colour to fall where it may. Should we (as proof providers) have sets ups for every paper type even though we proof on the actual paper? How can we say that a proof meets the Fogra47 specification when the paper it is printed on does not meet the specification? What info should we supply to the printers and them to us - and other questions? * 2/10 degrees * D50, Status T, etc. * Spectrophotometer manufacturer and revision number * Measurement backing * If lots of OBAs - should we used M0, M1 or M2 (not everyone can use M1 yet) * Why would a printer use M2 with papers containing OBAs * Do we create an ICC profile for out of spec papers? Thanks - Mike Stewart