We like to play the pioneering role when it comes to addressing new types of customer needs," is how managing director Gerhard Jung sums up Mainteam's credo. Indeed, as a provider of print-on-demand and web-to-print, the company has virtually nothing in common with the classic newspaper publisher's prepress company that operated under the name "Chemigraphische" for over four decades. Today, the portfolio also includes the printing of posters, art, fine art prints and advertising banners for indoor and outdoor use. GMG's proofing and colour management solutions are of central importance to the company, as these tools ensure the specific consistency and high quality of colour reproduction.
With its many years of experience in the production of quality prints, Mainteam was able to successfully implement the change from conventional lithography to the digital age by using suitable technologies to achieve consistent quality management. On this foundation, it was then possible to open up new business areas.
Quality management in digital printing
The first step was to align the company's entire proof workflow with the ISO 1264 7 offset process standard. ComPlott Papier Union, a long-standing partner for customised solutions, once again assisted Mainteam in deciding which printers and software could best meet the special production requirements. GMG ColorProof offered itself as a suitable software solution for the Epson proof printers, which is a high-end solution for contract proofs for the respective printer-substrate combination. The colour-metric and visual consistency, as well as the repeatability of prints on different substrates, were the decisive factors for Mainteam. In the end, nothing prevented the PSO certification.
Quality prints with metallic also in large format
In recent years, Mainteam has also started to produce high-quality photo prints on proof printers. With two new Epson Stylus Pro 9900s, this is possible without any problems due to the high resolutions and optimal representation of spot colours. In addition, all formats up to DIN A0 can be handled. Mainteam had thus arrived at large-format digital printing with this approach.
The company now meets the highest demands for metallic prints with the Roland VersaCAMM VS-540 print and cut plotter, which proves advantageous for art prints and is particularly suitable for indoor use thanks to the odourless eco-solvent inks. It is used by Mainteam when fine art print results are required on canvas and photo paper up to 1.30 m wide with white and various metallic colours. In the meantime, Mainteam acts as a contact point for artists throughout Germany who trust in the craftsmanship of the quality provider when it comes to the digitalisation and production of their works. As silver and gold effects are becoming more and more popular in the art business, new enquiries come in regularly. The sale runs, according to the artist's wishes, via print-on-demand on the homepage www.fineart24.eu. But before this business field could become another pillar of Mainteam, it was necessary to overcome obstacles in production at the beginning.
In order to be able to deliver perfect quality, Mainteam invested a comparatively large amount of time in the preparation of the print data. Although the necessary colour know-how was available, Mainteam was convinced that there was still potential to be exploited in efficient data handling for optimum print results. "Especially in digital art printing, an accurate colour impression is the essence. Here, fluctuations in the grey balance, as they occurred at the beginning, are unacceptable," explains Holger Jörg, Technical Operations Manager at Mainteam.
Colour reliability
To solve this problem, solutions from three manufacturers for colour management were tested. One of them came out on top: GMG. The GMG Color-Server colour management solution minimises the effort required to prepare print data for various printing processes in advance. Through separation, re-separation or colour conversion of RGB, CMYK and mixed data, uniform colour standards are calculated fully automatically. "Once we had seen the improvements in print results that were possible through the use of GMG ColorServer, the advantages of Device Link technology over conventional ICC colour profiles quickly became clear to us during the test phase," explains Jung. With the use of ColorServer and ColorProof in direct print control, we then achieved ideal results with the intermediate tones. We didn't achieve this level of quality with the Roland RIP from VersaWorks."
High customer satisfaction
"In prepress, we are now able to meet the demands of brands such as Bayer, Rowenta, Tefal, Krups and Adler-Moden with flawless colour results and consistency," summarises Jung. The fact that GMG ColorServer delivers finished profiles was a great step forward in productivity for us," explains Jörg. "It saved us an enormous amount of time in the preparation of the image data.
Mainteam sees itself well prepared for the future, because as a specialist supplier the company has also successfully positioned itself in large-format digital printing. The willingness to invest in new technologies and to rely on the expert advice of ComPlott Papier Union has brought new customers to the Aschaffenburg-based company.
