Color Management in Narrow Flexo Printing

Printing is actually a process of copying graphic and textual information. Color is an important element of graphic and textual information. It is also an important basis for evaluating the quality of original copying. Throughout the printing process, from the scanning, production, and output of originals to plate making and printing, the transmission of color information always runs through them, and every link will increase or decrease information. The job of color management is how to control and control the color information in each link so that the print can faithfully restore the original or even exceed the original. Therefore, generalized color management is a very rich concept. I mainly want to talk about here, as an ink supplier in the printing process how to help customers do a good job in color reproduction, as well as the color management solutions unique to the company.

In modern life, with the development of social culture, people's aesthetic interests have been continuously improved, and various commodities are dazzling and dazzling. How to attract consumers' attention in many products and stand out, brand awareness has long been a topic for managers to study, and the gorgeous and colorful colors are a powerful weapon for label printers to compete for customers. Therefore, choosing a high-intensity, high-purity brand UV ink to express colors and enhance product quality is critical for narrow-width flexo printing plants. An excellent color management system can also help printers reduce raw material loss, reduce scrap rates, reduce downtime, increase production efficiency, and reduce production costs.

The branded series of UVivid inks introduced by Selenk Ink Company just meets the above characteristics. All the basic colors are based on Pantone-based pigments. Not only the color intensity is high, but also the color purity is high, the colors are gorgeous and colorful, and the color gamut is wide. This makes the use of high-line number anilox rolls possible, even if the field is in the same dot as the dot, which can make the field full of colors and clear dots. In addition, for some particularly bright spot colors, Selenco UVivid series of ink products can be easily demonstrated due to its unique material selection process and wide color gamut.

We know that narrow-width flexo printing is favored for its flexibility, and its printed products are also diverse. Especially in label printing plants, not only are there many specifications to be printed, but also the use of spot-color inks is extremely frequent. . Under normal circumstances, each time you change the color of new products, you need to stop, color, proof or trial production, production. This repeated, not only wasted a lot of raw materials, but also reduced the production efficiency. Therefore, how to avoid or minimize the increase in production costs due to color proofing is a topic that should be discussed in depth.

Normally, when a colorist dispenses a spot color, the color is flexibly assigned based on the recipe on the Pantone card and his own experience. However, the formula in the Pantone color card is actually an offset printing formula. There is a certain difference in the use of such a formula in flexo printing, and the anilox roller used for color proofing in flexo printing will be adjusted accordingly due to actual needs. All these increase. Flexibility in the color palette. Therefore, an efficient and excellent color management system is necessary.

Selenk Ink Company adheres to our business philosophy of “supplying ink, solving problems”, not only providing high-quality UV inks to a wide range of narrow flexographic printing companies, but also providing high-quality services and a full range of solutions. As a value-added service, we have prepared four solutions for color management.

Option One: Pantone Formulation Guide

All recipes in this recipe guide are color-developed by our company using GretagMacbeth's dedicated system for initial color grading, and then advanced color technicians make more accurate predictions, manual preparations, and viewing under the standard three-primary-color light source viewing table. Calibrations, adjustments, etc., have been finalized after so many iterations of experiments, and their formulas are very accurate.

Option two: Cherlyn scale

This is an exquisite palette scale weighing up to 6 kg. All recipes for some of our company's products are stored, and customers can also store some custom recipes according to actual needs.

Option 3: Connex Balance Scale

This is a powerful palette scale weighing up to 7 kg. Internally embedded a personal computer, and installed a set of windows-based coloring software. The software is powerful, in addition to the conventional ink color, there are large databases, and data analysis, inventory management, data output and storage of recipes and other data.

Option 4: Color Lab

On the basis of option 3, install a rapid fluid dispenser (Figure 5) or agitator, IGT proofer (Figure 6), GretagMacbeth spectrophotometer (Figure 7), UV curing machine and other packaging tools, and build a color laboratory.

After installing the above equipment, we can also sample the characteristic parameters of the anilox roller through technical means, find out the correspondence between the printing press and the proofing machine, and then use the proofing machine to off-line proof the general color, thus reducing the proofing time on the machine. The waste of ink and printing materials reduces production costs; shortens the preparation time before printing, improves production efficiency, and forms an efficient color management system. In combination with a spectrophotometer, quality control can also be performed.

It is believed that the above complete color management plan will certainly increase the production efficiency for a large number of narrow-width flexo printing manufacturers, enhance product competitiveness, and contribute to the rise of the domestic flexo printing market. ※

Author: Sericol Ink Co. Author: Pan