Having spent most of my working life in the offset litho side of the print industry I am very aware of the history of colour control and the massive roll it played in the growth of four-colour print over previous decades. Since my migration to wide-format digital in recent years I watch with interest the growing importance of colour expertise in this sector too.
The roots of wide-format are in screenprinting with its own very important product knowledge and skill sets. The market is largely dominated by public facing, retail and leisure point-of-sale print. Wide-format, digital inkjet printing has recently transformed the industry. Fast developing inkjet technology continues to bring us ever better, higher quality print. Designers and retailers are keen to exploit these impressive developments by using eye-catching, stunning quality, colour images. And as digital printers we have the task of transferring these images onto a variety of different display materials: window vinyl, poster paper, Corex, Foamex, display board and so on. So it’s vital that our print faithfully represents colour to the customer’s expectation. It’s important that our print quality is controlled over the whole range of substrates and often over several different print engines employing different digital print technologies. As the wide-format market continues to grow, what happens when a large job is split over several print companies? How do we communicate a colour standard? How do we ensure printed results match from different sources?
All this has to be balanced alongside getting the best out of emerging technology. Digital print is, in some ways, more subject to variables than offset printing. For example, the different technologies between digital print engines give us more possibilities for variables than between different litho presses. Digital print engines can cover quite different colour gamuts. We are increasingly faced with new colour issues; for example, how do we standardise across several print engines in the same company? In my opinion it would be wrong to ‘standardise’ to a lesser machine at the expense of not getting the best possible results out of a newer, more advanced, potentially better machine.
Several colour control standards are emerging specifically designed for the wide-format print industry. These will serve to provide some guidance and of course we already have at our disposal all the excellent control tools currently available to the wider print industry: colour control software, digital proofing, measuring, reporting and recording systems.
Many offset printers are taking the advantage to diversify into wide-format digital. This presents them with new challenges, taking them into new markets and having to learn about new materials and new production skills. However, they are usually ahead of the game in terms of people with good colour knowledge.
Wide-format is becoming much more colour sensitive. Following the litho lead, colour skills will become increasingly important, not just in terms of colour measurement and control but also in being able to offer expert colour retouching services. Investment in new technology should always be mirrored by investment in people: people with a knowledge of colour theory, people with good colour correction experience and people with developed Photoshop skills need to be on the recruitment list for wide-format printers.
We are fortunate that wide-format is one of the more buoyant sectors of the UK print industry. The opportunities for growth are very real. On the back of new technology we are exploring new markets and new applications. As digital production speeds increase we are taking more market share from traditional sectors. Wide-format printers must continue to invest in the latest technology but at the same time must make sure they recruit appropriately to support the changing environment.