Knowledge of pre-press printing color management
The color management system is controlled by printing. On the contrary, printing control can only be obtained when the substrate color, three primary ink colors, ink overprinting, and other packaging printing variables are relatively stable and balanced. Today, China Printing Company will give you a detailed introduction to the relevant content.
Undoubtedly, three primary color ink printing has developed from primitive painting to scientific imprinting, from photo-engraving to fully digital prepress, and has made great progress. But the printer must also perfect the variability of the raw materials directly related to the composition of the final printed product, such as inks and substrates. These variability, especially the variability that contains multiple types of substrates, has a great impact on color balance. The color imbalance will cause the overall color cast of the printed copy. The typical situation is that when the overall color cast of the printed matter containing neutral gray areas, the characteristics are very obvious.
The digital color management system greatly reduces the probability of color imbalance in the pre-press part by adjusting the tonal values of different devices. But printing as a whole, color imbalance is still widespread, especially paper printed matter. This article describes the application of three-color color management for gray balance control in printing.
Color transfer
To understand how to control color cast, you must first look at the color delivery system. When characterizing the reproduction process and the subsequent printing process, there are two important operators that determine the color balance of the entire tonal range of the three primary colors. One is the printing operator, who decides the ink imprinting order, imprint value and the control of the color density of the three primary colors; the other is the prepress operator, who sets the ink percentage of the imprint color in the halftone area in the printing, such as high-key and mid-tone setting.
The overall color balance of the printed copy is determined by the strength (density) and color (hue and saturation) of the three primary colors. Only when these printing factors remain stable, the mixing percentage of color dots in printing can be determined. In printing and color transfer and reproduction before printing and printing, if there is no strict control, only relying on the parameter control of the color management system cannot guarantee the printing quality. Practice has shown that controlling ink density and gray balance through experience is the most important part of color management in halftone color printing.
Gray balance control is not a new concept. Before the computer age, when color separation was based on photographs, the standard SWOP (Offset Publishing Guide) density had been established. However, several things have changed. One is that flexographic printing has occupied an important position in three primary color printing; second, due to the emergence of new ink pigment technology, the basic ink primary colors have also undergone great changes.
The color management system is controlled by printing. On the contrary, printing control can only be achieved when the substrate color, the three primary ink colors, ink overprinting, and other printing variables are relatively stable and balanced. In fact, the balance of these important parameters will continue to change with changes in printing, such as to match the changing basic materials, inks and substrates. Pre-press artists use all the control, color management, and measurement systems, but still cannot guarantee that they will be able to obtain consistent and color-balanced halftone products. The reason is that small changes in substrate color, ink opacity, or overprinting are not noticed by the printer.
Gray balance and three primary colors ink overprint
In book printing, the three primary colors of ink are mixed in different proportions to obtain the desired color spectrum tone value. The correctness and balance of the density of the three primary colors printed on the substrate is directly related to the printers in China. Printers can only measure and set ink density within a limited range. But these density ranges can obtain a larger range of overprinting ink colors, regardless of whether the ink is pure and transparent, or whether the substrate is pure white. Generally speaking, the application of the current actual pre-press color management system is not ideal for the control of printing colors. The first step in color management in printing is to determine the best ink overprint sequence and the density balance that can provide a high color rendering range.
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