PANTONE Color Restoration Mystery

In the flexo label printing industry, there is a “beautiful legend” that uses 7 colors to print most Pantone colors. The advent of this technology allows machines with more than 7 colors to be replaced without changing ink. Greatly improved the efficiency of the plate change. An equipment manufacturer has highlighted the application of this technology at last year’s international exhibition.

However, a recent recent experiment may change the myth of this technique. Instead of using 7 colors, four colors are used to achieve most Pantone color printing. According to the experimental results, when 7 colors (CMYK, orange, green, reflective blue) are used, 1412 and 1519 Pantone colors can be simulated in the case where the color difference values ​​ΔE are 2 and 3, respectively. When four colors are used, in the case where the color difference values ​​ΔE are 2 and 3, respectively, 1184 and 1302 Pantone colors can be simulated. If you add extra silver, you can reproduce 1184 and 1302 metal Pantone colors.

This is the amount that has never been reached in the CMYK four-color test.

The success of this experiment gives the four advantages of four-color printing. First, since the three colors are reduced, the variable amount in the entire printing process is reduced. As with all other processes, the reduction of the variable usually means an increase in the stability of the entire process. The printer can choose whether to add 3 color groups for the extra 200 Pantone simulations, depending on the needs. In addition, according to statistics, most of the equipment currently used for label printing is an 8-color machine. If you can restore most of the required colors with only 4 colors, then the remaining four colors can provide more possibilities for people, such as metallic ink, two white inks, and so on. 

However, it is not easy to achieve this effect. Very precise control of the entire printing process is required to minimize fluctuations in individual variables. For this reason, when there is a problem with the printed product (such as ink density, dot reduction, etc.), it is necessary to be able to quickly determine the source of the problem and determine the solution corresponding to it. To achieve this, Apex International specializes in the production of a “calibration roll”. The ink transfer precision of this web roller is 2%, and the consistency of ink flow and transfer is better. Through the experiment, using this “calibration roller” can quickly determine the cause of the problem in the print, in order to correct. As for the experimental content and results, and look at the next decomposition.