Thursday 2 April 2015

A colour standardisation know-how for brand owners

IdeaAlliance in conjunction with Indian Printer and Publisher (IPP) and Bombay Master Printers Association (BMPA) hosted the G7 colour seminar in Mumbai to address the complications of colour in the purview of the brand owners and discuss the best practices involved in the packaging supply-chain. The event was held at the Sunville Banquet in Worli on 17 February, 2015.

Steve Smiley, Owner, Smiley Color & Associates Global Brand Solutions initiated the seminar by stating the basic principles of RGB and CMYK and their role behind the entire colour standardisation gamuts. “It’s a simple fact that we can’t print using RGB just because the overprint of green and blue will lead to black. That is the reason we use CMYK, a subtractive theory of colours, for printing,” said Smiley.

“But these CMYK numbers (100Y or 100M) are all ambiguous. For every process, be it CMYK or RGB, you have to put a number on top of them to make it meaningful,” he added.

In support of this statement, Smiley presented the audience with a simple exercise which Dr Abhay Sharma of Ryerson University and a colour expert who was also a speaker at the G7 conference held in New Delhi on 14 February, 2015, had carried out. The exercise involved several colour measurement devices which he used to pick up the numbers. But eventually all three devices ended up showing different results. The numbers are there, but we don’t get same results.

“From a brand standpoint, we need all the packages to look the same, which is why we need to have a standard procedure which makes it look the same. When we print to the numbers, we define these colours in LaB, a colour space that our eyes perceive. By taking a LaB number for each one these, we can compare the colour we got from the printing process. The number is the Delta-E, which is defined as the visual difference,” stated Smiley.

He asserted that, as a part of standardisation from the brand owners point, it’s the brand owners responsibility to share the Delta-E value with the print company to ensure accurate colour and what the tolerance levels are on the package.

An interesting fact that Smiley stated is that, the Lab value for cyan (or be it any other colour), is the same for GraCol, Fogra and for JapanCol. The amount of standardisation today has been achieved to a point no matter where you print it in the world, you are bound to get the same colour.
Following the needs and pain points of not using a colour management tool, Smiley presented the audience with a solution, the G7 method, a system that relies on grey values and works across substrates and printing processes such as offset, gravure and flexo. Smiley also spoke about the need to use spectral curves in packaging in addition to using tone value curves and grey balance.

RS Prasad of Sakata Inx also spoke briefly about the basics of colour reproduction as well as some of the issues concerning packaging – particularly flexibles.

The event saw more than 50 participants, both from the brand side as well as the packaging converting side. The event was supported by Epson, Indo Polygraph-KBA and Sakata Inx.

Source: http://www.printweek.in/News/393504,a-colour-standardisation-know-how-for-brand-owners.aspx

Monday 23 February 2015

Success for PrintWeek India at PrintPack 2015



PrintWeek India was the exclusive media partner of PrintPack 2015, held at the India Expo Center, Greater Noida outside New Delhi.

IPAMA, the governing body of PrintPack, claims PrintPack is the third largest show in the world after Drupa and Print China in terms of visitor traffic. There were in excess of 400 exhibitors which included all the major print players including Xerox, Canon, Konica Minolta, Epson, Kodak, and Manugraph.

The show attracted more than 80,000 footfall (45,000 unique visitors) across five days and the total sales due to orders booked at the show is Rs 2.5 billion.

PrintWeek India was privileged to edit and produce the PrintPack Daily and the team, under group editor Ramu Ramanathan, did a brilliant job of coming up with a 32-pager packed with interviews, insights, surveys, product launches and descriptions across all five days.

Those who could not attend the show but wished to stay informed followed PrintWeek India's regular tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn updates and the daily e-Bulletins. The advertising sales team sold close to Rs 1.6 million worth of advertising into the daily, a first of sorts and the highest in such an activity for the team.

The subscription team wasn't far behind either. An intelligent marketing push helped sell around Rs 300,000 rupees of subscription and copy sales.

Due to the success of the show, IPAMA is keen to continue the partnership with Haymarket and PrintWeek India for the next edition in 2017.

Tuesday 10 February 2015

VariPak3D - 3D visualization tool Launch On Feb 11, 2015.

VeriPak3D is a complete 3D visualization tool for graphics professionals in the print, packaging and labeling industry. VeriPak3D is designed to provide close communication between creative professionals and clients from product conception through to final client approval and print.

Being web based, the client simply logs in to the VeriPak3D server, selects from a thumbnail list of available jobs and the 3D animation is loaded directly in the browser. Designers are free to experiment with the design and detect potential problems at an early stage in the process. With PDF/PS input, the designer can also detect potential print production problems and alter his design accordingly.

The printer also benefits, knowing when the job is approved, viewing the final 3D model and being able to communicate back to the designer for potential print production related issues.

We can expand the range to the next level by having approval module in this package to ease out the process of job approval.

Benefits

3D visuals on the web
Reduced product time-to-market
Cost savings in time and materials
Better client contact
Customer satisfaction
System expansion options

Check out our official website: www.bodhi-pro.com