In the UK, Mercian Labels has invested in Xeikon's Color Control cloud-based colour matching system.
The tool is claimed to allow the closest possible matching of colours to both the full Pantone book and to hard copies of previously printed packaging and labels provided by customers.
Xeikon Color Control enables printers to profile their Xeikon presses and create colour tables for specific colours. Having printed a target, the measured values are uploaded to a central server where a new profile is created, together with a library of named colours. This is said to give printers much better control over their output quality and match the output with conventional jobs that have been printed previously. Quality reports as well as an overview of the stability of the production environment, can easily be made available by the pressroom operator for others.
Dr Adrian Steele, managing director of the Mercian Labels, comments: "Nothing will extend the physical limitations of a CMYK colour process gamut beyond its theoretical maximum, but using Xeikon Color Control we are really pushing the barriers of colour matching to the limit."
He adds: "In one recent case we were asked to match an injection moulded plastics lid and a litho printed carton to that of a colour known to be tough to print on a digital engine, even one as good as the Xeikon. Using Xeikon Color Control we quickly determined that we could get to a ?E of 3 without printing anything on press. Once matched, that is exactly what it did - with a very impressive colour accuracy."
