Color: It’s All in the Process

Sun Chemical agrees that color-matching and on-press process controls are the basis of quality spot-color print results. To reduce the incidence of subtle variations of the same brand color “that are undetectable until they wind up side-by-side on a shelf,” explains Iain Pike, business leader, brand color management, Sun Chemical currently is working with converters and their brand-owner customers on a “palette rationalization process” that aims to reduce the number of brand color versions to a manageable level. “A typical implementation may consolidate some 250 variations of brand colors down to just 24 target colors, making the overall workflow more manageable and assuring better color consistency,” Pike says. To set realistic targets and expectations as to what can be achieved on press, Sun also recommends that brand colors should be documented as physical color standards that take into account printing process, ink systems, and substrates and are produced under controlled conditions for color consistency. “Other package end-use requirements that affect color, such as light-fastness and chemical resistance, etc. also should be reflected in the physical color standard,” Pike says. pP