Some ten years after the Providence system successfully introduced interactive color image editing in terms of appearance variables, making use of a very accurate soft proof and computer-based RGB-to-CMYK transformation, it is perhaps appropriate to see where these ideas have gone and what we may expect in the future.This period has seen the proliferation of very inexpensive computer systems and software for color prepress operations. At the same time, a whole new industry, desktop publishing, has developed. Inexpensive color printers and scanners are available. A new generation of operators has appeared who come to this subject from the computer side rather than from the printing side.What apparently has not happened is the widespread introduction into the new publishing activities of the extreme attention to color quality typified by the gravure printing industry as it existed 20 years ago. In this talk, I shall discuss what can be done to raise color quality in the new environment.