FirstPROOF Reviews

FirstPROOF is an excellent upgrade for Harlequin workflows, … to my knowledge FirstPROOF is one of the best and most cost-effective workflow upgrades on the marketSrdjan Vukovic, Owner, Application doo, Serbia

FirstPROOF has been an extremely handy tool and has saved our bacon a number of times.Lionel Broadley, CEO, Colony Printing, Australia

With the volume of pages being processed at Toowoomba it is an absolute necessity. Having it as a check in the process saves an awful lot of time, as well as materials, by being able to identify a potential problem prior to actual film output.

Prior to the installation of FirstProof, if the platemakers did not identify problems on film or plate, it was either printed wrong, or caused delays in printing. Both of these scenarios cost in credits and/or added costs through delay.

With the imminent installation of CTP technology, the importance of FirstProof becomes paramount.Peter Moat, Advertising Services Manager, Toowoomba Chronicle, Australia

As APN changes it’s printing facilities progressively to CTP some type of checking the output from the rips became necessary.

As the cost of plates is many times more than film, with impositions of up to 8 pages and the increase of completed pages coming in, the margin for error has grown considerably.

Firstproof gives us the ability to check all the plates before we send the files to the CTP avoiding plate wastage.Don Peterson, Editorial Systems Manager, APN News and Media, Australia

Over the last 3 years APN News and Media Regional Newspapers have rolled out new page pagination and tracking systems. With this process at some site’s came the move from Agfa Avantra 25 film imaging devices to CTP. As we could no longer check negatives we went in search of an alternative means to do these final checks.

We chose Firstproof for a number of reasons. Some of these are, there is no major underlying infrastructure required, the price, and functionality.
Due to the success of Firstproof at the CTP enabled sites we have now installed Firstproof at the sites using Avantra 25 image setters as well.

Firstproof is much more accurate than checking negatives. Our press downtime due to imaging errors has decreased by at least 50%, which is quite a considerable amount of money.Steve Tempest, APN News and Media, Australia

A must have for anyone serious about their work!Lorin Tremblay, CEO, Compo Art, Canada

As a longtime FirstPROOF user I am amazed at the features of the newest version. It has incorporated all of our wish list items and some even we hadn’t thought of. This version truly is a complete prepress tool.

My prepress department now has all of the tools necessary to have complete confindence in the files they send to plate. A few of the features even help us with our pressroom now that we can see ink coverage, total ink densities and dot gain.

Kudos to Hamillroad!Scott Vaughan, Prepress Manager, Kase Printing, Hudson, NH, USA

FirstPROOF v3.0 is the most feature rich previewer I have ever used.Pat Berger, Mercer Color, USA

We have been using FirstPROOF since it was first released and every subsequent release has brought more exciting and essential functionality.

The release of FirstPROOF Pro has had a drastic impact on our profitability with mistakes being picked up sooner and a drastic reduction in proofing material used, so much so that the savings are paying for our new VLF Flexographic Platesetter.

The latest release of Pro is once again a giant leap forwards and I would urge any quality conscious shop to spend some time using it and really give it a try.Gavin Jones, Technical Director, Syreline Process, Cape Town, South Africa

I really like the new IDG Tool in FirstPROOF Pro v2.1, especially when checking jobs that include stochastic (HDS) screening.

With this tool we are now able to accurately soft-proof RIPped data prior to output on our CtP machine, and see exactly what we are going to get from a printers perspective.

This is the very first time that a soft-proof on a monitor will actually show your page more accurately than any other digital hard-proofing method.
Marko Rakar, CEO, Printel, Zagreb, Croatia

We have tried various SoftPROOFing products since we introduced CtP in 2001, but the moment we saw a demo of FirstPROOF, we knew that this was something worth watching carefully.

FirstPROOF has proven itself to be a really solid product which works with all the TIFF file formats and compression schemes that we use, something that most of the previous products that we tried were not able to do. It includes a very powerful File Naming Filter that is really easy to use and this has allowed us to automatically recombine ibit TIFF files back into jobs regardless of the naming scheme that we have used.

The best feature however is FirstPROOF’s speed which is many times faster than any of the other applications that we have previously used. If we add this to the list of other features including zoom and rotation tools (we were unable to rotate our files before), navigator window, 1D and 2D measurement tools and a powerful color manager for assigning colors to individual separations, what we have is a really powerful application.

FirstPROOF has helped us increase our productivity by speeding up the last minute checking of our 1-bit TIFF files and the Ink Limit warning tool has helped us pinpoint errors and possible problems on the press before we even imaged the plates! This feature alone has helped to pay off the investment in FirstPROOF with just a few rescued jobs.Marko Rakar, CEO, Printel, Zagreb, Croatia

As a large supplier of Flexographic plates to the South African printing industry we have learned time and time again how costly mistakes can be, a concern that has been raised by our move to CTP. The first time that we saw a demo of FirstPROOF, we knew there and then that we had found the answer to our problems.

Once we decided to implement it, there was some initial resistance from the operators mainly due to the fact that it is new technology but once they saw the benefits it brought to our company; it was quickly accepted as part of the family.

The extensive range of tools and features in FirstPROOF Plus coupled with its speed and ease of use have made it an indispensable component in our Harlequin Workflow so much so that we are currently busy installing it on every production machine in our company.

As far as the cost of installing FirstPROOF goes, we recovered the cost of our investment in hours and it more than pays for itself over and over on a daily basis.

I guess that all I can say is that it is one of those applications that once you have it you wonder how you ever lived without it.Gavin Jones, Technical Director, Syreline Process, Cape Town, South Africa

Since we have been using FirstPROOF, there has been a significant reduction in errors in jobs on our press.

The ability to roam jobs accurately using FirstPROOF has given our company an advantage in saving materials and reduced down time on our press. FirstPROOF is a definite plus in any environment that outputs files for imaging or printing.

This product is definitely a worthwhile investment for any company needing a good first line proofing system.
Kevin Hanmer, Virtual Colour, Cape Town, South Africa

We have installed FirstPROOF on every workstation in our studio, Macs and PCs. The licenses paid for themselves in a matter of weeks in saved materials and time.

Anyone with a pre-press background will love this software. It is also an excellent pre-flight tool. I cannot think of a more cost effective, simple and reliable way to improve pre-press efficiency.
Andrew Kinnear, Pre-Press Manager, York City Printers, York, England