Factors Influencing Image Quality in a Digital Workflow

The factors that influence the image quality in the digital workflow have been studied at a number of different graphic art service providers. All of these companies have two digital workflows: 1. Image originals delivered by the customer and scanned at the service provider to CMYK-files. 2. RGB- and CMYK-files delivered by the customer to the service provider. The two workflows contain different functions but have the same goal: to make the reproduced image as similar to the original as possible and to match the customer's specifications. Tests have been carried out with the objective of identify the primary factors that influence image quality. Further, methods of equalizing the functions in the different workflows have been evaluated. The possibilities of reorganizing and automating the workflows or parts of them have also been analyzed. Interviews with customers have been carried out in order to establish which quality factors they consider as the most important. The study has shown that the difference workflows give different results. It also shows that it is possible to reorganize the two different workflows into one to achieve more consistent and predictable image quality. Many of the functions in the digital image workflow can be automated if the images are classified and prepared correctly.