Press Characterization
Generating quality digital Proofs and Plates is best achieved by knowing in advance
how the press performs against specific plate characteristic (thickness, conformity,
line screen) and the substrate to be printed on.
Finger Printing The Press
Color Technology’s printing knowledge is second to none. Our prepress and pressroom color management expertise spans 30 years of color calibration experience. We can help your operation to learn and follow G7 process control practices that will make your operation more efficient and dramatically improve color match and overall reproduction quality and consistency.
Greater color vibrancy, more accurate brand color reproduction and faster make-ready to reduce start-up waste are the result. Achieving this starts with having a current profile of your press in order to generate accurate digital proofs that you print to with confidence.
The process entails an analysis of the processes, practices and equipment used in normal, daily operation. It may be there are several simple adjustments needed that will produce more optimal performance and greater efficiencies. Once that is complete a press fingerprint chart will be run and used to help determine the print characteristics of the press.
The purpose of fingerprinting the press:
• Linearize the press to an industry standard such as GRACoL/G7
• Neutralize press for gray imbalance
• Produce neutral print curves
The fingerprint test must be printed under normal conditions, at normal production speeds, using clean ink along with clean anilox rollers. This ensures that standard press runs will achieve repeatable results during normal production runs.
Our color specialists will measure a range of the printed fingerprint charts a spectrophotometer will be used to measure color and densities as well as check for even plate impression, which needs to be three percent or less from operator side to gear side of press. (Example: using the dot area function on your device measure a fifty percent patch and keep impression deviation at three percent or less). Close attention needs to be payed to ensure there are no skips or dirt on the data targets or the test results will be inaccurate.
After the fingerprint data is collected and extrapolated, a near-neutral curve will be applied to the seven colors and added to the profile target.
Turn to Color Technology Inc. for dependable printing solutions.
