Fixing Colour Quality Issues
Colour Issues
The most frequently occurring quality complaints have their source in the lack of colour Accuracy and Consistency. These defects are the first one to be noticed and their impact for the consumer perception is also immediate. Often, badly printed packaging materials are associated with low quality or even expired products.
Inaccuracy
Assuming that the substrate material has the same uniform properties/quality, colour lack of accuracy may originate in a bad decision made at the very start of the printing process. It concerns the inks and varnishes used. Such a mistake may lead to a whole batch rejection as non-compliant.
Comparing the two color values in CIELAB – the printed one versus the requested Pantone code we get a significant variation of delta E (also written DE or ∆E).
Inconsistency
The inconsistency issues appear while the printing machine is running and the operator fails to act in time to correct this changes. The print becomes too dark – the spectrophotometer will indicate lower values on the L scale (luminosity) of the CIELAB model or too light (higher L values). The source can be either in the machine – i.e. bad ink circulation, printing pressure, the cliché condition or the ink has lost/altered its initial properties (too little or too much solvent is present).
Solution
Production has to keep up sometimes with tight planning and short delivery times and speed gets priority over quality. This is in many cases the number one triggering reason for all the above mentioned deviations.
Deocletian Management Consulting (HAASTO.BE) offers on site services of print production supervision (for flexo printing, digital and also offset jobs). They are conceived specially to prevent and correct all colour deviation issues. Your packaging materials will gain in quality that ultimately transfers to your brand’s image.
Fix these problems today!