Sean Milmo, European Editor01.19.18
Color is pivotal to brand awareness. Increasing amounts of information on consumers’ shopping behavior have established that color is a crucial influence in the making of buying decisions because of its vital role in brand identification. Studies show that consumers can recognize brands just by their colors alone.
The power of color comes from its capacity to communicate feeling. But to be effective at the point of recognition and purchase in the shops, it has to be consistent. Differences in the appearance and quality of colors can be regarded by shoppers as a sign of unreliability and may even trigger a preference for competing brands.
As a result, the main operators in the packaging, label and commercial printing chains – designers, printers, press equipment manufacturers, ink producers and their raw material suppliers, and software specialists – have been re-evaluating their contributions to this major objective of consistency.
This has involved not just reorganizing their own working procedures but looking for ways they can collaborate more closely with their suppliers and, above all, their immediate customers.
Color Management
Color control and management has been a platform for ink producers in Europe to provide printers with technical support on the application of inks to gain more consistent quality with colors.
Many leading ink companies in the region run training courses for printers on subjects like inks formulations, pigments and dyes, the interaction of inks with different substrates and color measuring technologies.
In some countries, these training courses have been run in conjunction with printers’ trade associations as part of a program to upgrade knowledge and skills.
However, in the wake of the rising importance of color management, the provision of training assistance and technical support has become a crowded area, with ink companies meeting strong competition from press equipment makers, software companies and even paper suppliers.
What has had a radical impact on the whole issue of color control has been the emergence of a more responsive marketplace in consumer products, which has been made possible by digital technologies. Packaging can be rapidly redesigned to target small specific groups of consumers.
The printing of packaging is done on shorter and shorter runs, frequently on different substrates. Amid the numerous design changes, vital colors on the packaging have to remain consistent.
“(The) increased pressure to generate more (print) jobs faster and with shorter run lengths is becoming a common challenge for the entire industry,” said Udo Panenka, president of Esko, software specialists for integrated solutions in packaging and printing.
Developing Standards
Over the last 20 years, international, national and industry standards have been built up to become a major means for judging the quality of color management systems.
Much of the work on them has been done by the printing graphic technology committee (TC 130) of the Geneva-based International Organisation for Standards (ISO). The committee has participants from 24 countries in Europe, North and South America and Asia.
Its ISO 12647 standards cover color management in printing processes – offset, coldset and newspaper presses, screen printing and flexo – with the aim of producing consistent, high quality results.
Most government bodies and leading brand owners in Europe will expect that printers they use are certified as being compliant with ISO 12647 standards. Some certification schemes recommend that printers not only aim to be compliant with ISO 12647 standards but also ISO 9001, the overall standard for quality management systems.
The standards are updated, sometimes relatively frequently. ISO 12647-7:2013 for digital proof color prints was last year replaced by ISO 12647—7:2016. “The old ISO 12647-7:2013 standard has served its time and is no longer applicable,” said Juergen Seitz, senior technical advisor at color management specialists GMG GmbH, a member of the TC 130 committee.
He admits that some revisions of standards have been controversial. “I remain convinced about the high value those (revised) standards will deliver over time,” he explained. “They have to, because they’ll mean improved color communication and much more color accuracy than in the past.”
There are still gaps in the coverage of the TC 130 committee, particularly in relatively new technologies like digital printing. There are no standards yet on the management of colors lit by LED lighting.
Among the standards currently under development by the committee are metal decoration in color printing, spot color characterization data and communication of ink properties.
Ink producers and press equipment manufacturers help upgrade the performance of printers by assisting them in obtaining ISO certification.
Heidelberg, which besides making presses produces inks for them, certifies users of its offset machines as being compliant with the ISO 12647-2 standard for the process.
The problem with ISO standards is that they mainly confine themselves to managerial and equipment operating procedures. Also, they are specific to individual printing processes. Thus, printers following the present trend of working with a mix of processes such as offset, flexo and digital may have to comply with a number of ISO standards.
Standards bodies like ISO have had difficulties in keeping up with recent advances in printing technologies, particularly in the digitalization of workflow through from pre-press to the finished product. The software supporting automated systems have been filling the gaps in standards.
Automation has replaced the well-established, conventional method of gauging quality by physical standards, which has led to errors and inaccuracies, with digital standards which are much more dependable. Digital standards provide the basis for the operation of the sophisticated spectrometry and densitometry machines whose measurements are far more likely to guarantee that one color matches another.
Software toolboxes are enabling print operators to avoid being overwhelmed by the multiplicity of tasks loaded on them by short runs being done on a mix of printing processes.
In a survey of offset printing businesses, Heidelberg found that the average overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) was at a low of only 25 percent, which even if it was doubled would be considered to still leave considerable room for improvement. The company concluded that the figures reflected how much operators were being overburdened by the number and speed of jobs they are having to handle.
Heidelberg developed the Prinect Color Toolbox, a color management solution, particularly for packaging printing, which is supported by the company’s own software and equipment.
It meets the requirements for “absolute repeat precision, even for the shortest of production runs” with colors looking “exactly the same in different media,” according to the company.
The operator is able to choose how to organize jobs with autonomous printing being intermingled with manual activities. Thus, the operator still has complete control with the ability to intervene if necessary in transparent autonomous workflows.
The Prinect package even includes a facility for inline sheet inspections throughout the entire print run at full production speed. If the print quality is out of line with the target the operator can, if necessary, intervene to change the ink. With some software systems, out-of-specification inks can be reformulated as a result of an automated in-line inspection.
One weakness of automated printing systems is a lack of historical data in digital form on which to base a color management software program, especially if modeling or data analytics is required.
Digital printing is by its nature well positioned to be a source of data. But it is still a relatively young process compared with conventional printing systems. Automation along the full length of the printing production chain has also been around for a comparatively short time.
Software specialists recognize the difficulties of collecting together the right data for measuring accurately color differences between samples and the target quality. This can be particularly complicated when different lighting conditions have to be taken into account, for example comparisons between perceived colors in daylight and in artificial lighting inside retail stores.
The danger is that the wrong data about contrasting lighting conditions may be selected by inexperienced personnel, leading to false values.
Some experts claim that because of the fast changes in printing technologies and the big inroads made by digitalization, there is a shortage of skills and up-to-date knowledge about color science and its day-to-day applications. Printing and graphics colleges have been cutting back on the teaching of the subject.
More specialist knowledge is needed at the grass roots level, especially among SMEs in the printing supply chain, including not just printers but ink producers as well.
Designers could be given more authority to monitor what is happening along the printing chain. Unfortunately, research shows that only a small minority of designers in Europe know enough about colors and the influences on them of ink and substrate materials so that few are qualified to do the job.
These gaps in knowledge could at least be partly filled among printers by ink producers. This would be an opportunity for ink makers to provide assistance that would help to reinforce customers relations and lead to collaborations on the development and testing of new inks and equipment.
European Editor Sean Milmo is an Essex, UK-based writer specializing in coverage of the chemical industry.
The power of color comes from its capacity to communicate feeling. But to be effective at the point of recognition and purchase in the shops, it has to be consistent. Differences in the appearance and quality of colors can be regarded by shoppers as a sign of unreliability and may even trigger a preference for competing brands.
As a result, the main operators in the packaging, label and commercial printing chains – designers, printers, press equipment manufacturers, ink producers and their raw material suppliers, and software specialists – have been re-evaluating their contributions to this major objective of consistency.
This has involved not just reorganizing their own working procedures but looking for ways they can collaborate more closely with their suppliers and, above all, their immediate customers.
Color Management
Color control and management has been a platform for ink producers in Europe to provide printers with technical support on the application of inks to gain more consistent quality with colors.
Many leading ink companies in the region run training courses for printers on subjects like inks formulations, pigments and dyes, the interaction of inks with different substrates and color measuring technologies.
In some countries, these training courses have been run in conjunction with printers’ trade associations as part of a program to upgrade knowledge and skills.
However, in the wake of the rising importance of color management, the provision of training assistance and technical support has become a crowded area, with ink companies meeting strong competition from press equipment makers, software companies and even paper suppliers.
What has had a radical impact on the whole issue of color control has been the emergence of a more responsive marketplace in consumer products, which has been made possible by digital technologies. Packaging can be rapidly redesigned to target small specific groups of consumers.
The printing of packaging is done on shorter and shorter runs, frequently on different substrates. Amid the numerous design changes, vital colors on the packaging have to remain consistent.
“(The) increased pressure to generate more (print) jobs faster and with shorter run lengths is becoming a common challenge for the entire industry,” said Udo Panenka, president of Esko, software specialists for integrated solutions in packaging and printing.
Developing Standards
Over the last 20 years, international, national and industry standards have been built up to become a major means for judging the quality of color management systems.
Much of the work on them has been done by the printing graphic technology committee (TC 130) of the Geneva-based International Organisation for Standards (ISO). The committee has participants from 24 countries in Europe, North and South America and Asia.
Its ISO 12647 standards cover color management in printing processes – offset, coldset and newspaper presses, screen printing and flexo – with the aim of producing consistent, high quality results.
Most government bodies and leading brand owners in Europe will expect that printers they use are certified as being compliant with ISO 12647 standards. Some certification schemes recommend that printers not only aim to be compliant with ISO 12647 standards but also ISO 9001, the overall standard for quality management systems.
The standards are updated, sometimes relatively frequently. ISO 12647-7:2013 for digital proof color prints was last year replaced by ISO 12647—7:2016. “The old ISO 12647-7:2013 standard has served its time and is no longer applicable,” said Juergen Seitz, senior technical advisor at color management specialists GMG GmbH, a member of the TC 130 committee.
He admits that some revisions of standards have been controversial. “I remain convinced about the high value those (revised) standards will deliver over time,” he explained. “They have to, because they’ll mean improved color communication and much more color accuracy than in the past.”
There are still gaps in the coverage of the TC 130 committee, particularly in relatively new technologies like digital printing. There are no standards yet on the management of colors lit by LED lighting.
Among the standards currently under development by the committee are metal decoration in color printing, spot color characterization data and communication of ink properties.
Ink producers and press equipment manufacturers help upgrade the performance of printers by assisting them in obtaining ISO certification.
Heidelberg, which besides making presses produces inks for them, certifies users of its offset machines as being compliant with the ISO 12647-2 standard for the process.
The problem with ISO standards is that they mainly confine themselves to managerial and equipment operating procedures. Also, they are specific to individual printing processes. Thus, printers following the present trend of working with a mix of processes such as offset, flexo and digital may have to comply with a number of ISO standards.
Standards bodies like ISO have had difficulties in keeping up with recent advances in printing technologies, particularly in the digitalization of workflow through from pre-press to the finished product. The software supporting automated systems have been filling the gaps in standards.
Automation has replaced the well-established, conventional method of gauging quality by physical standards, which has led to errors and inaccuracies, with digital standards which are much more dependable. Digital standards provide the basis for the operation of the sophisticated spectrometry and densitometry machines whose measurements are far more likely to guarantee that one color matches another.
Software toolboxes are enabling print operators to avoid being overwhelmed by the multiplicity of tasks loaded on them by short runs being done on a mix of printing processes.
In a survey of offset printing businesses, Heidelberg found that the average overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) was at a low of only 25 percent, which even if it was doubled would be considered to still leave considerable room for improvement. The company concluded that the figures reflected how much operators were being overburdened by the number and speed of jobs they are having to handle.
Heidelberg developed the Prinect Color Toolbox, a color management solution, particularly for packaging printing, which is supported by the company’s own software and equipment.
It meets the requirements for “absolute repeat precision, even for the shortest of production runs” with colors looking “exactly the same in different media,” according to the company.
The operator is able to choose how to organize jobs with autonomous printing being intermingled with manual activities. Thus, the operator still has complete control with the ability to intervene if necessary in transparent autonomous workflows.
The Prinect package even includes a facility for inline sheet inspections throughout the entire print run at full production speed. If the print quality is out of line with the target the operator can, if necessary, intervene to change the ink. With some software systems, out-of-specification inks can be reformulated as a result of an automated in-line inspection.
One weakness of automated printing systems is a lack of historical data in digital form on which to base a color management software program, especially if modeling or data analytics is required.
Digital printing is by its nature well positioned to be a source of data. But it is still a relatively young process compared with conventional printing systems. Automation along the full length of the printing production chain has also been around for a comparatively short time.
Software specialists recognize the difficulties of collecting together the right data for measuring accurately color differences between samples and the target quality. This can be particularly complicated when different lighting conditions have to be taken into account, for example comparisons between perceived colors in daylight and in artificial lighting inside retail stores.
The danger is that the wrong data about contrasting lighting conditions may be selected by inexperienced personnel, leading to false values.
Some experts claim that because of the fast changes in printing technologies and the big inroads made by digitalization, there is a shortage of skills and up-to-date knowledge about color science and its day-to-day applications. Printing and graphics colleges have been cutting back on the teaching of the subject.
More specialist knowledge is needed at the grass roots level, especially among SMEs in the printing supply chain, including not just printers but ink producers as well.
Designers could be given more authority to monitor what is happening along the printing chain. Unfortunately, research shows that only a small minority of designers in Europe know enough about colors and the influences on them of ink and substrate materials so that few are qualified to do the job.
These gaps in knowledge could at least be partly filled among printers by ink producers. This would be an opportunity for ink makers to provide assistance that would help to reinforce customers relations and lead to collaborations on the development and testing of new inks and equipment.
European Editor Sean Milmo is an Essex, UK-based writer specializing in coverage of the chemical industry.