Pre-press is the process used when digital files are prepared for printing.  Two key requirements of this process are fidelity and consistency.  In the past, the pre-press industry has depended on lossless image compression (for example using EPS or TIFF file formats) and colour calibration of all components in the process, using defined lighting and viewing conditions in order to achieve optimum results. 

JPEG 2000 offers opportunities to the pre-press industry to both substitute its traditional formats with the more advanced aspects inherent in JPEG 2000, and to re-purpose its content to allow it to be used in Internet publishing or other contexts.  The same JPEG 2000 image can generate thumbnails, screen images and print ready material simply by truncating a prepared codestream at different points.  In addition, the powerful metadata handling and association in JPEG 2000 files means that Digital Asset Management or workflow processes can be easily linked into pre-press delivery, providing security to the photographer, image creator, and printer alike.

A key facet is the ability of JPEG 2000 to deliver true lossless compression - in one possible operational mode even the colour transform from an defined colour profile such as sRGB is lossless.  The ability exists within JPEG 2000 to use a number of well defined colour management profiles, and in particular ICC colour profiles, supporting the CMYK spaces used within the pre-press industry.  As the file format can include full colour space definitions (at least in the extended version of JPEG 2000 defined in Part 2 of the standard), including the formula used for transforming to another colour space, proprietary and accurate colour representations can be transferred between systems (at least within the limitations of output devices to render them).

For more details contact:
Lou Sharpe, Picture Elements Inc