Inking Outside the CMYK Realm

Fannon, and her colleague Ken Wagner, are key members of Pantone's Hexachrome product development and technical support team and are currently heavily focused on bringing the message of HiFi printing to the label and packaging markets. Our industry is ripe with presses—both offset and flexo—with six, eight, and ten print stations. Wagner says there are distinct economic advantages for running Hexachrome on these presses when the system is adopted as a mainstream process rather than as a novelty. Because of the increased color gamut of the six-color system, color match can be achieved without using special spot color inks on a wider range of jobs. No special inks means fewer wash ups and more opportunities to gang up shorter run jobs on the same substrate. (Note: Hexachrome Magenta ink is more expensive than standard magenta because it's made with rhodamine pigment rather than rubine.)