The team at Serendipity Software has been busily working on version 3.1 of Blackmagic for most of 2005. The release date is slowly approaching so a peek at some of the new features is in order. Version 3.1 will be a free upgrade for all version 3 users.
New features
Flip Book
Version 3 introduced a feature which allowed de-imposition and output of signatures to a duplexing printer to create a print dummy of the job. This allowed for incredible gains in productivity for magazine and book publishers.
Version 3.1 takes this a step further by allowing on the fly softproofing of publications. This further increases productivity as changes to books and magazines can be instantly checked on screen without having to wait for the printer. As the Serendipity Client can access the server remotely, this allows for remote softproofing of entire books and magazines by anyone. Below is a screen shot of this new feature.
If your computer has one of the newer video cards with at least 64Mb or RAM you can view the magazine in 3D and even flip the pages just like a real magazine! Just click on the image below to watch a movie of the flipbook in action.
Once a job has been loaded into the flipbook, it can be exported to PDF as either single pages or spreads. This allows anyone with a PDF viewer to see the finished product. Below are links to 2 pdf files. One has been exported as single pages while the other as spreads. To reduce the file size they have been exported at 36 dpi using JPEG compression with a quality setting of 60. Normally you would export them at 72 dpi using a jpeg quality setting of at least 70 to ensure minimum image artifacts.
Flipbook update, 21 July 2005: You can now export the flipbook as a quicktime movie on both Mac OS X and Windows
Automatic monitor calibration
To further improve the colour accuracy of the softproof, version 3.1 introduces automatic monitor calibration. if you have one of the supported monitor calibrators, Blackmagic can automatically calibrate your monitor to meet even the most demanding softproof applications. Just dial-in the required deltaE and let Blackmagic do the rest.
Enhancements
Signature Editor
In versions prior to 3.1 the editor could only handle impositions with a fixed page size and a layout which formed a regular grid. This severely limited the kind of signatures it could handle. For example, signatures with different jobs ganged up on a single sheet to save paper could not be handled.
Version 3.1 frees the signature editor from all restrictions and allows free form editing and importing of signatures. When importing signatures, layouts that form a grid are grouped together for easier editing. An infinite number of gridded groups can be present in a single signature. Gridded groups can also be broken up and regrouped in any combination. The only restriction is that pages that form a group have a common page size and form a grid.
Below is a signature showing just how flexible the new editor can be. The signature was imported from a Preps file.
And below is the same signature showing the new grouping feature
Another enhancement relates to the handling of plate sizes and grippers. In version 3.1 it is editable and can easily be toggled on and off.
Softproof
A replace colour set can be selected so that each time a job is loaded, it will be automatically applied. This allows for hand tuning of the softproof colour accuracy for users that do not own a monitor calibrator. The results can be quite exceptional using this method of calibration and it is already being used by some of our customers.
Duplexing
The duplexing process has been enhanced by allowing groups of jobs to be named when submitting them for processing. This ensures that they always stay together when duplexed. This naming of jobs is called a publication name and it is automatically assigned when submitting jobs for de-imposition.
Job Editing
The “modify jobs” feature has been further enhanced by allowing editing of more attributes. The screen shot below shows the new “modify jobs” dialog.
Nesting
The nesting engine will now automatically rotate pages to get a better fit. This reduces paper wastage and allows jobs with varying sizes to be mixed together.
Thumbnail
The thumbnail is now configurable. You can have it show a thumbnail for the imaging or rendering process. Previously only a rendering thumbnail was available.
That just about wraps it up. This list is in now way complete, so expect even more new features to be announced as we get closer to the release date.
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