Color Dictionary for Digital Printing.....

DICTIONARY OF COLOR

Honestly, I was impressed with the people that How much they known about Colors on Digital Printing .Most of them has limited terminology but huge practism.

I read many articles and glossy about Colors on many pages. And finally understand to combine most important words and explanation which needs for Digital Printing . As you do understand that we are not university student in the market but still have serious confusion about terms.

In my Dictionary is just Relating Digital Printing terminology with Solven,UV,Textile printing basic s.

Such as, Dpi and Ppi has really mixed each other.

Therefore on this belog ,I will  get all these basic informations from some  useful links such as Flaar.org,SignLink,SignWeb and with my own portfolio.

Here are my Dictionary of Color where it is brings you value:

·          Adobe Gamma, a function to calibrate monitors provided by Adobe Systems.

·         Adobe RGB 1998, sometimes written as Adobe RGB. Released in 1998, Adobe RGB 1998 requires the use of a monitor profile and then in theory, images will display identically on any monitor that is using the same profile

·         banding are horizontal lines on a printers where it caused by mostly mechanical rhytem problems . Banding is an undesirable effect of all sizes and shapes of inkjet printers, both piezo and thermal. Banding easy visible on Solid colors There may be lines or absence of image within the bands.

·         black is the absence of any color because the object has absorbed all color and hence reflects none back to the observer. In theory black results when you combine all three primary subtrac- tive colors. But the actual inks or paints are not pure enough and the end result would be a muddy dark brown. Hence in printing you need pure black colorant to produce your black type and other desired blacks. In the abbreviation CMYK, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, black, the K is thought to come from the old fashioned printer's term as the key color.

·         black point compensation is the adjust­ment of black points between different color spaces, which allows for the darkest darks of an image to remain unchanged.

·         channel, specific color areas of an image. Examples of channels are red, green, or blue for RGB and cyan, magenta, yellow, and black for CMYK.

·         chroma is saturation, the quality of a color that is the combination of hue and brightness. White, black, and gray have no chroma.

·         color (brightness, colorfulness and hue) color requires an observer, an object, and a light source.

·         color conversion, changing from one color model to another. For example the RGB to CMYK conversion that is performed by the RIP software when printing to an ink jet printer.

·         color correction, the process of altering an image so that it displays realistic color. Color cor­rection can be done in a variety of different methods, including color balancing and manipula­tion of color curves.  .

·         color separations, individual printout of colors used in an image. If an image is four colors, there will be four separate prints, if the image is two color, there will be two separate prints and so on

·         color shift is an unwanted change in color. Color shift can be caused by using an incorrect rendering intent or using the wrong color model when sending a job to an output device.

·         complementary color, a color that is the exact oppo­site of another is called.

·         Delta E is how to pronounce AE; a standard for measuring difference in color. The smallest difference in color a normal (healthy) person with healthy eyes can distinguish.

·         densitometer, a device that measures the density of colors.

·         density is the ability of a surface to absorb a source of light. Light colors have low density; dark colors have high density because not much light is reflected off them.

·         dye sublimation, is a chemical process whereby heat is applied to an inked surface. The heat turns the ink (so no more individual droplets). The result is continuous tone. Dye sublimation works best on polyester.

·         flat color, color that is solid and contains to blends or gradations.

·         FOGRA, a non-profit research institute in Munich, Germany dedicated to setting standards in offset printing

·         GCR, Gray Component Replacement. This process replaces portions of the CMY ink with black ink throughout the image including highly saturated areas, as opposed to UCR (Under Cover Removal) which removes CMY primarily in shadow areas which are supposed to be neutral anyway.

·         gray balance, the process of removing colorcast tint from a color. Gray balance is needed when C, M and Y are not in proper proportions and all colors make a shift towards the colorcast tone and may happen at several stages of production.

·         Hexachrome inks, a trademark name for a special 8-color ink set. Hexachrome inks were popular with offset printing but were not successful at all in the world of inkjet.

·         High-Fidelity (Hi-Fi) Color, color that is reproduced using more then colors then four, usually six or more.  

·         ICC, International Color Consortium. Their web site is www.color.org. Established in 1998 by eight leading companies in the field of printing and computers, with the intent of creating cross- platform color management system standards

·         ICC profiles - generating, individual device profiles are recommended and may be generated with the use of specialized profile making software and color management equipment.

·         linearization; the purpose of linearization is to adjust a device (in our instance, an output device, namely a wide-format inkjet printer) to take advantage of its full color gamut and dynamic range. The first printout of color patches will show the current state; correction will result in a more even pattern stretched out to the maximum possible for that device.

·         optical density is the measure of the blackness of a printed image. Optical density is also referred to as Black absorbs 100% of the light; white absorbs 0% of the light

·         perceptual rendering, one of the four rendering intents. Perceptual rendering is recommended for photographic reproduction. Choosing this rendering intent, converts all colors into a realistic available color space, including out of gamut color, to the same degree, which preserves relative color relationships. The other color rendering intents are Saturation, Absolute Colorimetric, and Relative Colorimetric.

·         printer profile, ICC profile of the printer and it ability to reproduce color in terms of inks and media used.

·         Relative Colorimetric adjusts all colors relative to the white point of the target gamut. Out of gamut colors are moved to the nearest color which the target gamut can reproduce. The other three rendering intents are Perpetual, Saturation, and Absolute Colorimetric.

·         Relative Colorimetric, one of the four rendering intents. Choosing this rendering intent, adjusts all colors relative to the white point of the target gamut. Out of gamut colors are moved to the nearest color that the target gamut is capable of reproducing, which is a color shift.

·         Perceptual (for photographs)

·         Saturated (for signage, to get saturated colors)

·         Relative Colorimetric (for specific colors that you need to reproduce exactly such as a logo color)

·         "rich black" is 100% K with varying amounts of Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow.

·         saturation The measurement of the intensity of a color. When an image is set to 0% saturation it loses all color information, it becomes grayscale. When an image is set to 100% saturation the colors become the greatest intensity possible; vividness is highly saturated, dullness is less saturated. A lay person's description of saturation might be how strong the color was. Covering a color with a glossy surface, such as lamination, will increase the perceived saturation.

·         sRGB was an attempt by Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft to make color choices easy for the lowest common denominator,

·         TIFF is short for Tagged Image File Format for digital images, abbreviated .tif. If you are doing professional digital photography, you should save your working images in .tif format instead of jpg.

·         UCR, Under Cover Removal, obviously removes something, in this case removes some of the CMY and replaces them with K (black). This results in lower printing costs since colored ink costs more than black ink (on traditional offset presses at least).  

·          OEM ,original equipment manufacturer,such as Hewlett Packard,Canon,Epson,Eurotechprinters,...etc.

As you may see above points in your RIP software or Design Software such as Adobe Photoshop,Freehand,CorelDraw…etc.

Main Issue ,To get Right Color,Right impact with  your printer and ink.

Donot forget Even all your color adjustment are correct , if your ink  color shade is weak as chimistry than you dont have chance to catch the same colors.

Specially ,Check if you are able to print Purple,Orange(like Bronze). Donot try to Flag Red,Coca-Cola Red or Parliment Blue,Most of the case, All inks can easy reach closest Gamut points of these.

Thanks for all the links that shared all useful info with me..

Solvent Inks versus Latex Inks ....

So many years ,we are living with Solvent based inks on wide format printers with suc enviorenmental problems .  These inks are spread over Hard,Mild and Eco solvent inks but all are harmful however Consumption of ink spread over all over the world

I remember early 2001 ,around September 11 days, Kodak (Encad Inc.A Kodak company) released a printer with resin ink which name was VINYL JET,which is water based resin ink ,printable on PVC media .It was a very bad project and while Kodak closed Inkjet division ,all lost it out.

Then Everyone in Europe and USA thought UV inks will switch Solvent inks which is common expectation is also bended by World Economic crysis which cause all use cheaper products and Solvent ink safe again.

However World biggest company Hewlett-Packard come with new Latex technology and much better printer by creating HP synergy on end users go much better.

Still Solvent inks are dominant on the world with ink suppliers, INX Digital,Sun Chemical,AT Inks,Stetjet Digital Inks,Inkwear,Blackjet(PRC),Fieldcenter,Toyo(only OEM),Limei(PRC),Bordoeux Inks,Sam Ink...

Latex inks are carry with HP with own printers.

According to me,Latex goes more fast enough over Solvent but it seems min.10-15 years Solvent inks may be with us.