ColorCert Version 2.6 is a cloud-based specifications management solution for easy exchange of colour data in real time among brand owners, printers and packaging converters.
Designed to improve productivity and quality, ColorCert is a modular job-based colour workflow solution for creating colour specifications and measuring performance against those specifications using a simple scoring method. It provides real-time statistical process control for defining, monitoring, and communicating colour quality – across the plant or around the globe.
Vincent Whatley, X-Rite Coordinator and responsible for the implementation of the project at UK-based Ultimate Packaging said, ‘ColorCert gives us visibility into problems we were not aware we had, including with our ICC profiles, ink formulation and proofs. With the data we gather using ColorCert, we have learned a great deal about repeatability, as well as hitting the scores and ICC targets through matching conditions of fingerprinting. It has also helped us work out how variables such as heat, viscosity and temperature were affecting our outcomes.’ Since implementing ColorCert, Ultimate Packaging has seen a 200% improvement in its ColorCert scores.
‘ColorCert 2.6 includes a range of new features that give printers and packaging converters more flexibility,’ said Christopher Winczewski, Vice President of Product Marketing for X-Rite. ‘It now incorporates a simple wizard-driven job setup that minimizes job creation time and allows operators to make last-minute changes at any point in the print process based on standard templates within the ColorCert Pressroom. Users get the benefit of a faster process without sacrificing the end-to-end color quality they depend on with ColorCert.’
To help printers optimise job set-up even further, ColorCert 2.6 has now provides two ways for users to populate job information; an interface to MIS systems or using PDF fields from supplied artwork. Either option supports a more efficient print operation, speeding jobs through production with less opportunity for error.
ColorCert 2.6 also now lets users define multiple combinations of settings within a job. For example, operators can use different substrate and tolerance settings for make-ready versus the controlled settings for ‘sellable’ production. This gives them the flexibility to optimise all variables linked to print production for greater efficiency.
ColorCert 2.6 extends Mac support to include the scanning option for the X-Rite eXact spectrophotometer, a next generation handheld colour measurement solution. All stakeholders in the supply chain can now rely on X-Rite eXact as the common instrument of choice for measuring colour in any mode across the entire workflow, including design and premedia where Mac is the de facto standard. Leveraging ColorCert with X-Rite eXact spectrophotometer provides customers with a power statistical process control solution that improves productivity and consistency in measurements throughout the complete colour workflow.
