Prepress
Four Pees launches DFlux: Production, Automated
Wednesday 19. May 2010 - New automation solution brings all-in-one production automation to creatives, printers and publishers
Four Pees, the international sales and marketing organization dedicated to the Print & Publishing market is proud to announce the availability of DFlux, a modular automation solution that streamlines print and publishing both upstream at creation and downstream in production. DFlux combines powerful and proven Enfocus automation and callas PDF technologies into one robust, feature complete, automation product. Optional add-ons further complete the product with image optimization, color standardization and high volume output automation capabilities.
“As a sales and marketing organization we have been getting a lot of feedback as to what the market needs with regards to automation”, says Tom Peire, CEO at Four Pees. “We feel we are in a good position to develop such a solution, but did not want to reinvent the wheel. Enfocus and callas both have proven to have strong technologies. Switch is a very strong automation platform, while callas, with Adobes backing, has without any doubt the best and most complete PDF technology. Therefore we wanted to use these two technologies as the basis of our own all-in-one automation solution”
A powerful core with powerful options
Regardless of the size of an organization, DFlux offers immediate automation of the many unavoidable manual tasks in a publishing or print workflow, such as file intake and submission, renaming and more. Its visual, drag-and-drop engine is easy to setup and mold to any existing workflow. In addition DFlux incorporates a complete PDF engine that handles anything from PDF preflighting to impositioning. Based on the same technology used by Adobe Acrobat Pro, this industry-standard engine provides in-depth analysis, quality control and automated fixing of PDF files. Working with variables depending on the input source or the output intend one can significantly save time instead of managing an automated system.
DFluxClient allows for remote monitoring of ongoing processes, file submissions, file reviews and more.
DFlux comes with predefined, practical, and usable flows that help creatives, printers and publishers getting a head start in implementing automation in their company. These flows automate anything from a specific action, such as file conversion to PDF, to an entire process such as the file and color standardization of incoming files.
The optional modules in DFlux include:
Image Optimization: An automatic image optimization module that standardizes and improves the quality of images, even inside PDFs.
Color Standardization: A set of DeviceLink profiles to standardize color of PDFs for different production processes.
Output Automation: InDesign Server based high-volume output automation of PDF and other publishing file formats.
An automation solution today and in the future
“While we have initially focussed on combining the power of these different existing technologies, our goal is to increase the added value we bring to our dealers and customers”, says David van Driessche, the recently appointed CTO at Four Pees.”We will go beyond offering a powerful platform or nifty technology and will continue to develop the product, filling the functional and usability gaps that are left by just combining individual products. Ultimately we want to democratize automation, allowing anyone in the print and publishing industry to get ROA: Return On Automation.”
Pricing and availability
DFlux is immediately available at 7.999. A fully functional trial for Mac or Windows can be downloaded from www.dflux.net
Pricing for the optional modules is as follows:
Image Optimization: 3.149
Color Standardization: 1.349
Output Automation (available in Q2 2010): 5.199