Color theory in printing has remained consistent for the past five to 10 years.
Converting RGB to CMYK is still challenging. Spot colors are still used to ensure that true and vivid brand colors are achieved. Spectrophotometers continue to be the standard to measure how well the color is being reproduced. Opacity, transparency and color separation are all still parameters printers use to ensure that the final printed product appears exactly as intended by the design department or print customer.
Three key market trends have affected how color theory is used today: sustainability, raw material availability and automation.
Prioritizing Sustainability
Most brand owners are prioritizing sustainability to enable delivery on their environmental commitments. This focus has changed the way packages are designed and inks are formulated. In today’s market push for a circular economy, considering the end-of-life for a package from the outset is now an important priority. When producing an ink as part of overall packaging design characteristics, it is now crucial to think about how it is going to be suitable for recycling and/or composting.
Photo and art courtesy of Sun Chemical
Converters are taking this opportunity to weigh their options to better understand what is best for the product, the consumer and the environment. There is a real need for more detailed lifecycle analysis to confirm that making the switch from one structure to another, or from one material to another, delivers the expected reduction in environmental impact.
For example, flexible film packaging converters are considering ways to reduce the amount of plastic in their structures, whether that’s by taking out layers or by shifting to paper-based packages in certain cases. Barrier coatings and adhesives can enable these transformations. Different choices will require discrete ink characteristics to print properly.
As the packaging changes for improved sustainability:
- Pigments chosen previously may not be suitable to meet the sustainability guidelines as issued by the packaging industry and local agencies
- The amount of pigment that can be used is often restricted
- Package redesign itself (whether through lightweighting or moving to different substrates) can possibly impact color
Tools mentioned—spectrophotometers and predictive digital color solutions—have helped better predict color achievability when moving to new sustainable pigments, pigment coating weights and package designs. Today, those instruments play a key role in helping converters reduce waste and changeover times, as well as ink inventory.
Raw Materials
All types of global logistics and transportation processes remain a challenge, stemming from ocean to rail, to over-the-road modes. Labor issues continue at many ports and railways around the world and are still impacting port congestion.
Raw material shortages have forced ink manufacturers to diversify their supply base to supplement traditional strategies and source regionally where feasible. Being single sourced for any key raw material is no longer an acceptable strategy. At the same time, regulations have tightened worldwide and changed the types of raw materials that can be used in an ink formulation.
Raw material shortages and regulatory requirements certainly necessitate formulating flexibility to meet the ongoing printing demands of the packaging industry. It is key that any raw materials substitutions:
- Meet industry and legal regulatory guidelines
- Don’t impact product performance
- Are specific to color with minimal impact on color (Delta E) and opacity/transparency
Examples of material substitutions that are being required in the printing industry are perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) materials. PFAS materials need to be replaced due to legislation and end user guidelines that will effectively ban these materials in food packaging, starting in 2024.
Pressroom Automation
The sustainability trend and raw materials challenge tie closely with the third variable—pressroom automation. Increasingly, converters in various regions around the world are embracing digital color management by using digital color standards that are a consistent target for everyone in the workflow—from design to print.
By using a web-enabled, color-matching platform to provide objective and consistently accurate ink formulation to a printer’s individual production specification, converters can confirm that an ink formulation is correct before sending it to the press. This minimizes any downtime on press for color correction, which, in turn, greatly improves productivity and reduces waste and approval time for new jobs.
By communicating up front which production spot colors are achievable, converters can set clear expectations with customers, resulting in less rework for colors and speeding up the costly, time-consuming color approval process from design to print.
Additional digital color tools help to move color approval from a subjective to an objective process by connecting a spectrophotometer to measure the quality of output on the press and validating it against a customized digital color library. These digital tools have recently been updated to adapt to more recycle-friendly substrates. Inks can be formulated to achieve the desired color and adhesion needed for brand packaging.
In addition to color management tools, it is estimated that 30 percent to 40 percent of packages in the US are now using expanded gamut (EG) printing. EG printing significantly extends the process color space that’s available, further enhances visual brilliance quality of process color imagery, and gives the potential to print branded spot colors within a process-color printing workflow.
EG offers printers a clear opportunity to balance budget, speed, quality and sustainability because it comes faster to color and significantly reduces makeready time and substrate waste. It reduces the number of press changeovers and reduces the amount of solvent needed for washing.
Converters that use EG printing average a 34 percent reduction in waste during press changeover time. It also leads to other automation advantages, such as increased press speeds by as much as 33 percent without any visible dot gain from the first impression to the last—which means color consistency throughout the run. Anilox volumes can also sometimes be reduced in EG, resulting in significant ink volume reductions. EG provides color consistency, so it can be used for printing brand colors without worrying about color shifts.
While EG printing isn’t a new concept, the equipment and inks have advanced in the past few years to ensure the platform is successful. Ideal for faster product rotation, smaller orders and shorter turnaround times, EG delivers tangible benefits to improve sustainability credentials and is cost-effective.
Critical Moves
Consistent brand color on a variety of packaging substates anywhere in the world remains critically important, but the color theories to achieve those results haven’t really changed. What has changed are market trends that modify the way ink manufacturers formulate inks.
Sustainability, raw material challenges and pressroom automation have been the keys to the latest developments in color matching using the digital technology to predict what the effect on color will be. Digital technology advancements combined with the increased usage of EG are just a few of the pressroom automation advancements that have been seen in recent years.
The need to develop inks for new sustainable substrates or formulate to meet end-of-life requirements along with raw material shortages and regulations have modified inks substantially.
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