:Apogee Suite 6 shifts Agfa’s pre-press workflow up another gear

* New exciting feature stream includes Agfa Graphics’ own :Apogee Preflight, and an exquisite new print buyer web interface for page upload and approval.
* Most fascinating is the way multi-part jobs are handled through a strong user interface and a well balanced JDF implementation.

Agfa Graphics announced today the release of :Apogee Suite 6. With this release :Apogee Suite users get access to new productivity features and enhancements in :Apogee Prepress, :Apogee Portal and :Apogee Color. Its users will welcome the opportunity to shorten production time and further simplify the production chain.

“We have seen a clear demand for intelligent optimisation of PDF files.” said Bart De Pelsmaeker, Head of Software Group at Agfa Graphics. “Our response is :Apogee Preflight which is deeply integrated within our :Apogee solutions. This new processing component gathers all job specific production characteristics and dynamically tunes the PDF accordingly, including the application of any required colour management. Combined with the Enfocus preflight technology, this truly adds another dimension to preflighting.”

According to PrePress Consultant Michael Mittelhaus, “this definitely is the best version of :Apogee Suite that I’ve ever seen”.
:Apogee Portal introduces a new single-dashboard user interface using Adobe® Flex technology. It offers ultimate interactivity and ties print buyers right into the production system. They can now upload files more easily, approve pages with control over their “colour managed” monitors, and provide annotations.
Browsing through the pages of a job can also now be customised. Whether you want to see true colour managed pages or readers spreads and page boxes, every view is there. And for the ultimate user experience, flipbook browsing has been included as a standard feature of :Apogee Portal.

“We love the integrated Versioning functionality. We can preview catalogues and brochures with language changes and check if we only need to change the black plate on press,” said Marco Heuberger, Manager IT and PrePress at AVD Goldach, Goldach Switzerland.
An extremely useful new feature is Agfa Graphics’ support for multi-part jobs which comes as standard with :Apogee Prepress. It allows different production elements, such as a cover, a body and an insert, to be combined in one single job. However, the different parts will still be processed according to their specific production parameters.

The whole job setup is presented in an easy to use way and further reduces valuable operator time. Job status and results are available at a glance in one single screen - all helping towards streamlining prepress production. “The ability to make production sets with totally different characteristics within a single job is going to totally change the way jobs are handled.” said Keith Kanak prepress manager at BFC in Batavia, IL, USA. “What we threw at it was a job that had a 4/4 cover, a 4/2 perfected body form and 2 more 2/2 perfected body forms. This was all achieved in a single job.”

:Apogee Suite 6 builds on a rich tradition of years of experience in pre-press workflow with Agfa Graphics now enjoying over 6000 installations worldwide. “Under the hood many things have changed too”, says Bart De Pelsmaeker, “The need to integrate with all-digital solutions means workflow has to be more than just making proofs and plates. For example, hybrid printing demands that traditional prepress tasks and the ability to drive digital presses are encompassed within the same prepress workflow. :Apogee Suite develops and grows with current and future trends. The :Apogee Digital Print Link already supports the Canon imagePRESS digital colour press family, and is being further enhanced in order to drive other digital presses.”

Other changes also benefit :Apogee Media, Agfa Graphics’ integrated publishing solution. The foundations for integrated communication based on JMF are already implemented in :Apogee Prepress 6.0 and scheduled for deployment at the end of 2009.