Formulating Pantone colors by unused base inks, formulation software, and a spectrophotometer

Unused base inks that are not going to be used for printing production are considered to be hazardous materials. Their disposal is expensive, and strict environmental regulations should be followed for their disposal. As an alternative, this article describes how spectral data of unused base inks ca...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Color research and application 2019-12, Vol.44 (6), p.910-916
Main Authors: Altay, Bilge N., Husovska, Veronika, Pekarovicova, Alexandra, Fleming, Paul D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Color
color difference
Hazardous materials
ink formulation
Inks
Pantone
printing
Printing industry
Software
spectrophotometer
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Summary:Unused base inks that are not going to be used for printing production are considered to be hazardous materials. Their disposal is expensive, and strict environmental regulations should be followed for their disposal. As an alternative, this article describes how spectral data of unused base inks can be gathered and mixed to generate new colors to incorporate them back to print production for small‐volume jobs. In this study, 30 different Pantone colors were selected as target colors. The CIE L*a*b* spectral data of Pantone colors and unused base inks were gathered via a spectrophotometer. A commercial formulation software, based on multiflux theory and CIE L*a*b* color space, was used to formulate ink recipes that contained the base inks. To quantify the performance of ink recipes, they were mixed and printed using an offset printability tester. The CIELAB ΔE*ab metric, developed by CIE, was used to detect the visual differences between the target Pantone Color and printed colors.
ISSN:0361-2317
1520-6378
DOI:10.1002/col.22430