X-Rite Color Blog

The Future of Color Consistency: LED Lighting Solutions for Industry Standards For years, fluorescent bulbs have been a mainstay in industries requiring accurate color assessment, but their downsides are becoming increasingly hard to ignore. These lights require warm-up time and may distort color accuracy, both of which lead to production delays and translate into higher sample costs. More importantly, fluorescent bulbs contain hazardous materials like mercury, complicating their disposal. Thi...

Brands may not have a line item in their budget for color, but it can impact the bottom line in different ways. Understanding the true cost of color can help accelerate go-to-market, reduce waste, and save thousands. Color plays a big role in purchase decisions when you consider it only takes shoppers 2 to 7 seconds to select an item from the shelf. To stand out, brands must introduce interesting designs to launch new varieties and seasonal specials, while considering the impact new packaging wi...

Originally published May 3, 2024 from https://canmaker.com/light-touch/ Industry stakeholders came together to explore ink and proofing standards for two-piece beverage cans. Nisa Ali reports from Manchester Leading companies across canmaking industry supply chains are considering general guidance for PantoneLIVE colours in the production of two-piece beverage cans. Following a series of seminars discussing the role of PantoneLIVE colour libraries in the design, proofing and printing process ...

Why Backward Compatibility in Spectrophotometers Is Key to Consistent Color If you’re here, chances are you rely on a benchtop spectrophotometer to keep your color quality on point. From textiles and plastics to paint, coatings, and more, these high-precision instruments are critical to maintain consistency in your processes. At X-Rite, we engineer our spectrophotometers to perform reliably for years, even in the toughest environments. But no instrument lasts forever, and eventually, an ...

X-Rite Pantone is excited to exhibit at Fakuma. Like many of you, digitization and sustainability are top of mind. We invite you to stop by our booth to see how an end-to-end lifecycle that focuses on color can help you: Fulfill your customers’ color demands Ensure color consistency with varying batches of recycled raw material Accelerate material color and appearance approval Minimize color surprises at delivery Actively decrease your global footprint The Key t...

Autura Ink: The Future of Cloud-Native Ink Formulation and Quality Control X-Rite’s latest innovation, Autura Ink, a cloud-native ink formulation and quality control solution, recently won the prestigious PRINTING United Alliance Pinnacle Award in the color management and quality control category. This award recognizes innovative new products that significantly enhance the printing industry through exceptional quality, capability, and productivity. We sat down with Ming-Pong Liu, Software...

Brands invest a great deal of time and resources when selecting a new color to represent their products. If the color doesn't match expectations after printing, runs are wasted, and everyone is left wondering where the color went wrong. Here's a typical scenario. A brand selects a season color for product packaging and communicates that color to the designer. The designer integrates the color into the design and hands it off to the premedia team to convert it into print-ready files. The files a...

Originally published May 3, 2024 from https://canmaker.com/light-touch/ Industry stakeholders came together to explore ink and proofing standards for two-piece beverage cans. Nisa Ali reports from Manchester Leading companies across canmaking industry supply chains are considering general guidance for PantoneLIVE colours in the production of two-piece beverage cans. Following a series of seminars discussing the role of PantoneLIVE colour libraries in the design, proofing and printing process ...

Accelerate ROI, digital transformation, and sustainability with a digital textile color program. Hiccups in getting to market can be devasting for any type of business. For fashion, soft goods, apparel, and footwear brands, a major concern is missing out on the opportunity to increase sales and establish or reinforce brand credibility. Brands simply can’t afford any unnecessary slowdowns during the execution of a design due to delays in preliminary steps such as the color approval process....

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In the sign and display graphics business, as in many other segments of the printing industry, shorter runs and reduced cycle times can stress even the most efficient wide format printing operations. By implementing a color-managed RIP-to-roll (or RIP-to-rigid media) workflow, these operations can ensure that color is right the first time and every time to help speed work through the shop and meet color expectations. Photo by Peter Saunders Today we are share tips from our Color Experts that c...

A recent amendment to the EU Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment will remove the current exemption for mercury to be used in a number of types of fluorescent lamps for special purposes by 24th of February 2025. These bulbs are defined under clause 2(b)(4)-I of the EU REACH directive. After the expiration date, the sale of new equipment including fluorescent technology under this exemption will not be allowed in Europe. Th...

The internet is full of Top 10 Countdowns. We enjoy looking back at our most popular blogs and learning resources to better understand what interests you – our readers. We’ve been publishing our top-read learning resources since 2016, and we’re happy to see some educational topics like color perception, tolerancing, and spectrophotometers continue to rank year after year. Here’s a list of the topics our readers enjoyed most in 2023. Have you read them all? Top 5 X-Ri...

When it comes to color accuracy in the world of print and packaging, having the right tools at your disposal is crucial. We understand how overwhelming it can be to choose from a plethora of options. Fear not, for we’ve simplified your decision-making process. Here’s our list of top color match devices, each catering to different needs:   eXact™ 2 Handheld Spectrophotometer for Paper, Corrugated & Carton Boards Ideal for professionals working with paper, corr...

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the colorful world of spectrophotometers? Don't worry, we've got your back! We've put together a quick list of the unique features of four of our color match devices to help you find your perfect match. Let's dive right in! Ci7860: The Precision Prodigy The Ci7800 is your go-to if you're all about precision. With its cutting-edge technology, this benchtop spectrophotometer guarantees spot-on color matches. If you're into perfection, this one's for you....

Starbucks has once again kicked off the holiday season with four new festive cup designs. This year they surprised us with a magenta accent, which “lifts the traditional holiday colors and makes the red even look brighter,” said Kristy Cameron, Starbucks’ creative director. In the frenzy of holiday shopping, packaging plays a crucial role in catching the eye of potential buyers. However, staying ahead of the game and adapting packaging designs to align with ever-changing con...

Enhancing Automotive Aesthetics with Automotive Color Match In today's fast-paced automotive industry where innovation is the driving force, the demand for precision and perfection has never been higher. Automotive designers and manufacturers are constantly seeking ways to enhance vehicle aesthetics, while parts manufacturers and refinishers strive to match color and appearance between parts and across sites. The Significance of Automotive Color Matching The right automotive paint color not onl...

Working in prepress holds a unique challenge. Even if your color workflow is tight, everything can fall apart if the customer’s file isn’t color managed. We’ve all seen it. You receive a file that the customer claims is ready to print, yet when you open it on your computer, the colors don’t look right at all. You can’t send it to print without knowing for sure, because you’re the one who will take the hit for wasted time and materials if it’s wrong....

Perfetti Van Melle (PVM) is a multi-national manufacturer of confectionery and gum. They offer innovative local flavors for numerous renowned international brands and distribute them to 150 countries worldwide. Since their final packaging includes a mix of materials including labels, foil, paper, paperboard, and shrink sleeves, each of their global printers must achieve accurate color on every substrate to portray a unified brand presence on the shelf… which is not an easy task. PVM sele...

The environmental footprint of fashion is out of control. According to the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), “Textile mills generate one-fifth of the world's industrial water pollution and use 20,000 chemicals, many of them carcinogenic, to make clothes.” Fabric being dyed in factory. Image from NRDC.org.  A Problem That Impacts Everyone Did you know it takes about 200 tons of water (enough to fill several swimming pools) to produce one ton of cott...

If ensuring color consistency is part of your job description, you’ll want to learn more about PantoneLIVE. Our customers report that it helps them get products to market an average of four times faster! PantoneLIVE is an end-to-end, digital color communication ecosystem that helps everyone involved in a packaging workflow visualize and communicate color. It shows which colors are achievable, and which are not, across everything from flexible packaging to corrugated board. And, since the digital...

When all of final production packaging comes together on the store shelf, it’s a brand’s moment of truth. Do the stand-up pouches, overwraps, and corrugated POP displays match? How close is the color to its standard? We know you spend so much time and money designing, proofing, sampling, printing, and shipping… so where does the color go wrong? Is it an issue with accuracy, consistency, or both? Package designs come together on the shelf. Here you see pouches, labels, cartons, and corrugated wit...

What happens when you have more than 2,000 brand colors to manage across a complex global packaging supply chain? Things get complicated! Although it may seem easier to create a new color than to dig through databases or binders of color drawdowns to find the closest match, the problem comes later when you’re faced with a huge, unmanageable library. One of our clients, a well-known fast-moving consumer packaged goods (FMCG) company, understands how easily things can get out of control. They wer...

All it takes is 2 to 7 seconds. That's right, a tiny snapshot in time is what a consumer invests in making many purchase decisions about a product. This is the much talked about and researched “First Moment of Truth”.   X-Rite color management solutions for print and packaging deliver excellence in quality control, formulation and automation.     Color is a significant factor in First Moment of Truth, when you considered the reach it has to engage us and communi...

When someone says “apple,” do you think red, green, or yellow? What do you do if a customer asks you to produce a color using descriptions that are not specific enough? Check out how something as seemingly simple as color communication can determine whether your color program succeeds or fails. A picture may paint a thousand words, but words alone do not paint a thousand colors. Circular conversations about color happen everyday. They generally start with someone asking for a sligh...

Does your quality control program include visual evaluation? If not, it should. Using the SpectraLight QC as part of a color evaluation workflow. No matter your industry, judging color is more than just measuring samples with a color measurement device. Just because a spectrophotometer says your color is within tolerance, doesn’t necessarily mean it will look right to the human eye. To minimize customer rejects, your color control process needs to include visual evaluation in a light boo...

Like you, digitization and sustainability are top of mind. However, colour is often overlooked when it comes to textile product development. Digitizing the textile supply chain and applying colour management at each stage will ultimately pay for itself through more accurate colour, faster production, and less waste. With over 60 years of innovation and proven expertise in colour management and colour measurement, X-Rite has solutions to support everyone in the textile industry, including appare...

Print quality measurement and process control can help you achieve accurate color across print and packaging applications. Today we'll share the essential tools you need to design, formulate, and print predictable color. We’ll also walk you through the ideal process to achieve color consistency across packaging substrates throughout multiple print runs. How to Choose the Right Technology for Print Quality Measurement Whether you're printing on corrugated board, metallic foil, plastic film,...

Anyone responsible for printing goods or packaging knows that some colors, like orange, are just too difficult to reproduce using only CMY inks. A fourth color, black (K, which stands for key color) is often added to subtractive color printing applications. Since C+M+Y actually creates a muddy brownish color due to ink impurities in C, M and Y, adding a true black ink creates the deep color and tones that CMY alone can’t achieve, plus adds density to the shadows. This four-color printin...

This time of year, the internet is full of Top 10 Countdowns. It’s a tradition we’ve embraced since 1940 when the Billboard published its first chart ranking the top selling recorded songs. Since then, others have jumped on the bandwagon to highlight the most popular trends of the previous year.   We’ve been publishing our top-read blogs since 2016, and we’re happy to see some educational topics like color perception, tolerancing, and spectrophotometers continue to r...