taylorjames:
Perfect Proofing
Most graphic artists will tell you there are three key stages to their work: the fulfilling stage when they are actually doing the work; the warm feeling inside when they see their work published; and slap bang in the middle, the tedious, time-consuming process of proofing.
And if you’re a visual artist, that middle stage has a further downside — it can be incredibly expensive. Running off all those proofs and transporting them around for marking up can cost a lot of money.
After many years of doing just that, the top brass at taylorjames, one of London’s leading photographic retouching companies, began to search for a quicker, more cost-effective solution. Their prayers were answered by a workflow built on Apple’s Xserve and Mac OS X Server that employs a revolutionary remote soft proofing application called DALiM DiALOGUE.
“The Xserve running Mac OS X Server is tried and tested and has proved itself to be such a strong and reliable piece of kit. It’s performed flawlessly — we don’t even know it’s there, which is what you want from a server.”
taylorjames is a Mac-based studio specialising in image manipulation, colour correction and image generation for high-end advertising clients who demand state-of-the-art images to dazzle the eye. They’ve always been on top of their game where image manipulation was concerned but, until recently, explains Studio Manager Nick Gowler, the proofing side of things could be a nightmare.
“We were dispatching proofs around the world and then waiting for telephone calls which, if we were dealing with a client in America, could be at 10 or 11 at night. Or we might get art direction by email, which can be pretty cumbersome: loads of files with comments marked up.
“Macs and DiALOGUE enhance what we do”, says Studio Manager Nick Gowler. Something that was missing from our workflow is now in there — they give us the edge”.
“What we needed was some kind of online soft proofing system which would complement our workflow. We researched the market, and there were a couple of Mac-based products out there which were very nice — but it was DALiM DiALOGUE which struck us as outstanding”.
DALiM DiALOGUE is a server-based, SWOP-certified remote proofing solution that runs under Mac OS X. The product debuted at Macworld New York in 2003, where it won a prestigious Best of Show award. Until recently, Dalim Software products were only available for SUN and SGI hardware, but when Apple launched its Xserve line of server hardware, the rules of the game were transformed. And these days the vast majority of Dalim Software’s customers are Mac-centric companies like taylorjames.
“It was obvious that an Xserve had to be our next purchase, and the fact that DiALOGUE runs on Mac OS X was an even better incentive”, says Gowler. “The fact that those two products could sit in the middle of our operation and complement the other equipment we have, and enhance and fit into the workflow made it a no-brainer decision”.
