Color bar printing is essential in ensuring consistent and accurate color reproduction on press. A color bar in printing is a strip of standardized color patches—often a CMYK printing color bar—that appears outside the live image area of a printed sheet. What is the purpose of a color bar? The main purpose of a color bar is to help press operators and quality control teams monitor and maintain color accuracy during a print run. By…
Quantum Group states “We elevate digital printing and offset printing and set the standard for color and quality” which is precisely why they continue to invest in the latest printing technology. A look at their About Us page reveals that they started in 1992 as a high-quality commercial sheet-fed printer and are continuing to evolve into a single source communications partner. Quantum Groups’ high-tech presses can execute a complete range of print runs, from small…
Here at Techkon we often get the question, “How fast can your inline spectrophotometer measure?” While in the end the answer is simple, sometimes it takes a little bit of mental dexterity to grasp it. Today we will answer the simple question and then give you the details behind it. QUESTION: How fast can your inline measure? ANSWER: How fast can your press print! I know that seems like an outrageous answer, and well…
Do you want to reset your SpectroDens? Resetting your SpectroDens will bring the device back to the factory default settings. **Please note that if you do this, all calibration data (including slope values), stored measurement values, reference values, target values, and tolerance values will be deleted.** If you have any questions at all, please get in touch with our service team by calling 978-777-1854, chatting, or emailing service@techkon.datacolor.com! Some reasons you might want to reset…
Today’s printers demand more from their densitometers. They know that relying on out-of-production – legacy devices is risky business. That’s why operators worldwide are upgrading to Techkon’s SpectroDens. It’s the fastest and easiest way to accurately control color and density in the pressroom – with full support for ISO and G7® methodologies – and it’s the most ergonomic device on the market. For the 2019 spring season, we’re offering a great trade-in opportunity. From now…
We often hear printers lamenting about the pressure placed on them by brands to implement technology to ensure their presses perform to their expected capacity. Many packaging printers purchase multi-million-dollar presses outfitted with even more expensive viscosity control, ink metering and inspection systems. It seems every last detail is thought about when it comes to ink, substrate, doctor blade and anilox roll process control. These investments are in large part done to ensure the final…
The feedback on the newest version of the SpectroVision has been phenomenal so far, so we are thrilled to be showcasing it at Graphics Canada 2019. The show details are as follows: Graphics Canada April 11-13th, 2019 International Centre Toronto, Ontario Booth#: 5500-E If you haven’t had a chance to read about the SpectroVision, it operates at press speeds up to 1,000ft/minute, and combines spectral based color measurement, web viewing, and ISO/ANSI style bar code…
By: Richard Black, Midwest Sales Manager I have been involved in the Print Industry for 30+ years mainly in the area of color reproduction. In the last 10 years, there has been a tremendous push within the print industry to improve color process control. This is being driven by print buyers and brand owners requiring consistent print quality and, in many cases, documented proof of the color reproduction. ‘Good enough color’ just won’t cut it…
Techkon recently announced a brand new solution aimed at budget conscious printers looking for a scanning solution that allows them to see a visual representation of the results displayed by ink zone and printing units. The solution utilizes the SpectroDens Handheld & Scanning Spectro-Densitometer in combination with Techkon’s Expresso software and serves a real need in the sheetfed offset market. Techkon has a long history of listening to their customers and coming up with solutions to meet…
PERFECT COLOR HAS NEVER BEEN MORE AFFORDABLE Techkon products help printers measure, manage, and communicate perfect color, and recognize significant savings in labor costs, ink, and paper. Our instrumentation, software and integrated solutions enable the finest quality print, ensure accuracy and repeatability, and deliver the highest ROI. To celebrate cyber week, we are offering up to 20% off select Techkon products. Contact us today to learn about and take advantage of this limited time offer*. Use offer code:…
WHY CLOSED LOOP? Closed loop press side color management improves the stability of your print processes on older presses. This is especially important as customers continue to demand greater color accuracy and color consistency from their print supply chain. Rather than turning away or losing business because you can’t meet a customer’s quality specifications or pricing expectations, modernizing your presses with closed loop makes it possible to deliver the right product at the right price,…
Join Steve Rankin, Techkon’s Director of Product Development at the FTA Fall Conference at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio as he discusses The 3 Most Common Problems in the Pressroom. The presentation, entitled “Damn Your Eyes” will be on Tuesday, October 30, 2018 from 3:00-4:30PM. Don’t miss this informative presentation as Steve identifies the most common problems our customers face including: Finding out on press that the color of the ink is not…
WHY COLOR QUALITY MANAGEMENT? Brand owners are placing ever increasing demands for zero-defect deliveries on their flexographic print supply chain. As brand owners continue to look for differentiation and easily identifiable brand colors across their product lines, they are holding printers more accountable than ever for color accuracy. Many ask printers to provide detailed quality reporting to prove the job adhered to color specifications agreed upon before the work started. As a result, the production…
PHOTO: Techkon SpectroDens 4 all-in-one-color densitometer and spectrophotometer. If you work in the color industry, either you are a brand owner, merchandise designer, printing professional, paint department staff in Home Depot or Lowe’s, or just a complete color geek like me who likes words like CIE CMC color, you will likely hear the term “ΔE”, pronounced “delta-E”. Since I work in the color industry, I spend most of my time talking to all of the…
Techkon SpectroDens4 has integrated our newly revamped GrayGuide function for checking G7® compliance with a total of 11 reference print conditions and 4 different modes when targeting G7® specifications. In this blog, will discuss each of the modes and how they might be helpful in various scenarios. G7 Absolute To configure settings under the Techkon GrayGuide feature, navigate to the bottom right corner and hit the Enter button. Once a Custom Reference Print Condition is…
Along with the publishing of an updated G7 Master Pass/Fail Requirements (version 34, January 2018), IDEAlliance further revised the procedure and aim reference for all printers that are interested in becoming a qualified G7 Master Printer. The article’s goal is to highlight the differences in the latest Pass/Fail Requirements versus the previous version 31 released in June, 2015. Non-Standard Substrate (SCCA) It is not uncommon for the actual press stock to vary from the standard…
You can call it “SCTV” or “Spot Color Tone Value” or “ISO 20654”. But regardless of what you call it, this is a topic that has created a lot of buzz in our industry over the last few months. However, despite all of the buzz and media coverage, there still seems to be a lot of questions about what is it and how it can benefit printers. So here’s a quick explanation that will hopefully…
Here’s why Techkon products are the color measurement tools of choice for printers around the world: Quality Assurance: Our handheld and scanning color measurement devices can immediately show pass/fail status relative to in-house and customer requirements. ChromaQA, our sophisticated, cloud-based, quality assurance solution, lets printers instantly monitor the color quality of jobs on press. Collectively, Techkon products shorten make-ready cycles, reduce the number of re-makes, increase color accuracy & consistency, and ultimately allow our customers…
This blog is inspired by John Seymour, also known as John the Math Guy (http://johnthemathguy.com/). Last year in 2016, John wrote a blog about his burning bush, the euonymus alaus, and the fact that it was starting chromatic transmogrification in September ( http://johnthemathguy.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-color-of-leaves.html). In his article, he picked several leaves and plotted the CIE a* & b* graph, as well as a spectral curve for each. Due to the fact that maple trees are quite…
I’m glad you asked! As you may have heard, Techkon USA recently launched a completely new version of it’s ChromaQA software (version 3.0). This new software pairs with the SpectroDens spectro-densitometer to form a very comprehensive, but easy to use, pressroom color quality solution that allows packaging and commercial printers to monitor the color quality of jobs on press. This kind of real-time job monitoring provides immediate feedback to press operators regarding the color quality…
