Alwan Color Receives 2024 Pinnacle Technology Award for Hydra Spectral Prediction

Credit: Alwan Color

Alwan Color Expertise has been chosen to receive the 2024 Pinnacle Technology Award for its Hydra Spectral Prediction technology. The Award will be presented to Alwan founder and President Elie Khoury at PRINTING United Expo, being held September 10-12 in Las Vegas.

The Pinnacle Technology Awards recognize innovative solutions that are pinpointed as having a significant impact on printing and graphics companies. This is the second time Alwan has been a recipient of the Award.

Said a Pinnacle Technology Award judge of Alwan’s Hydra Spectral Prediction technology, “There are many color management solutions out there, but this stands out for two reasons in my mind. One, that profiling can be done with so few patches thereby eliminating the need for dedicated pressruns; and two, that it appears to be very simple to use. Proper implementation of color management can be complicated and oftentimes very few people in a plant/operation are capable. This solution appears to take the complexity out of it.”

What is Hydra Spectral Prediction technology?

In Hydra Spectral Prediction technology, Alwan employs a patented approach to spectral analysis and color prediction that delivers the most accurate color profiles with significantly reduced expense and time associated with profiling and color management. Alwan has released two Hydra-based applications to date: Hydra Profiling and HydraFix. A third Hydra application that will deliver major benefit to the commercial print, specialty print and packaging sectors is expected to be announced and presented during PRINTING United Expo, where Alwan is exhibiting in booth 3237. 

Hydra Profiling 

Hydra Profiling provides specific spectral prediction pipelines for offset, flexo, gravure and digital. With minimal number of patches (e.g., 40 patches for offset) printers can profile, evaluate, and control the printing process without the need to have specially dedicated print sessions.

Prior to using Hydra Profiling, Alwan customers reported the cost of a successful calibration and profiling session to be close to $2000/substrate. The ROI with Hydra Profiling is immediate, as the cost of the standalone software application starts at $1240; or $60/month for the cloud service.

HydraFix

HydraFix offers automated, rapid updates of any digital print device profile. 84 patches measured in a couple of minutes are enough to update any digital device calibration and profile without the need for long (without HydraFix, 30-60  minutes operation) and tedious device linearization and profiling – requiring trained operators – for every change of substrate or printing conditions.

Hydra’s Bonus Benefit

Print providers looking for ink savings will benefit from Alwan’s Hydra®- based ink saving technology to save up to 10% more ink than with any other ink saving technology, without any compromise to print quality and color accuracy.

Excerpts from Pinnacle Award nominations for Alwan Hydra Spectral Prediction technology

Rekordata (for Scripta Maneant and the Vatican)

A collaboration between a New York-based publisher, the Vatican Museums, and the prestigious Italian publisher Scripta Maneant, the 3 - volume “La Cappella Sistina” features what art critic Katie Rothstein says are the “most precise images of the artwork ever produced”, and as Smithsonian Magazine said, “(renders) paintings by Michelangelo, Sandra Botticelli, Perugino and others on a 1:1 scale with 99.4 percent color accuracy.”

Says Fabio Santoro, a Rekordata color engineer who worked on the project, in his letter to the Pinnacle Award Judges, “One of the most amazing results of the project was learning how much the art community appreciates the challenge of achieving color accuracy. In article after article, the fact that La Cappella Sistina was produced with over 99% color accuracy was covered, and applauded.”

Sttark 

At Sttark of Greenville, South Carolina, CTO Michael Oostdyk said the following as part of Sttark’s Pinnacle Award nomination of Alwan for its Hydra Spectral Prediction  technology:

“At Sttark, we turn high-end color work around in just a few hours, and we need the color to be beautiful, and accurate, every single time. Unlike most other shops, we validate color before every single job. For example; if we get 100 same day jobs in by 10 am, we are promising those jobs by end of day… and every one of them will have been optimized for color and accuracy with calibration and a full press check prior to the run.

“Asking for the fastest technology – in any process – has usually translated to quality sacrifice. With Alwan HydraFix, the opposite has actually occurred. The process is not only faster; the quality is orders of magnitude better.

“HydraFix has become critical to Sttark’s success in the marketplace.”

Horizon Retail Marketing Solutions

Horizon Retail Marketing Solutions’ Print Manager Daren Cook spoke of both Hydra Profiling and HydraFix in the Cambridgeshire, UK company’s nomination of Alwan for the Pinnacle Award:

“Up until February of this year, we struggled with color management. We'd invested in a high­end solution that turned out to be difficult and slow. On top of that, support was a challenge.

After replacing it with the Alwan Hydra Profiling and Alwan Hydra Fix applications, our color profiling is absolutely spot-on. The results are impeccable.

Plus, it's super-fast - faster than anything else out there, and easy to use. Only two of us were able to operate the previous solution, and if we were not available, work would grind to a halt.

In contrast, anyone can operate Hydra Profiling and Hydra Fix - which is key for a lean operation like ours. It takes 5 minutes, if that, to identify and fix color issues using Alwan. On the rare occasion where we've had a tougher issue, we've still been able to work it out on our own ... saving the aggravation and costly wait for help we've experienced with our previous color management provider.

We are also realizing fantastic ink savings, and genuinely appreciate the precise control over this feature.

We are saving money and time, expanding our employees' skillsets, and most importantly, proving to our clients that we remain their best production partners.

Source: Alwan Color

The preceding press release was provided by a company unaffiliated with Packaging Impressions. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Packaging Impressions.