Production Director Nigel Hunt has gained a great deal of experience in ensuring that work produced at Blackmore is compliant with the requirements of the I.S.O. 12647-2 standard. Previously, they had successfully produced high quality work on many types of materials with a particular specialism in offset papers for several high profile clients. However, with the arrival of the first B1 LED UV press in the UK, a little step into the unknown was required.
Blackmore had never printed with UV inks before and LED UV inks are relatively new formulations. Therefore, it was important to monitor their predictability and performance on press and to also take into account the many new substrates that the press was able to handle, such as plastics and other non-absorbent substrates. David Bland (Director of Marketing and Sales) famously challenges other printers to send him their ‘difficult to print on materials’ and also states that they can print on the entire GF Smith range of papers with the new press.
QualityPass from KBA provides extensive reports on the quality and consistency of print produced and provides a score as a percentage against the required fields of the I.S.O. 12647-2 standard such as CIE LAB values, dot gain (TVI) and trapping.
The reports are generated as a PDF for every job produced and contain every measurement taken by either the Ergotronic Colour Control device or the QualiTronic ColorControl inline system. The viewer of the report can analyse the quality of print produced and make the required adjustments to improve the scoring, for example; tensioning blankets or making alterations to the plate output curves.
Nigel Hunt’s quest for the highest quality in everything Blackmore produce means that he monitors in minute detail successive jobs and successive sheets to ensure the calibrations he has in place have not shifted. Traditionally, this would mean several hours measuring sheets and noting down the results. Now he can see instantly if press conditions have changed and react accordingly.
Nigel states: “The beauty of printing with LED UV on offset papers is that the ink sits up on the sheets and cures, so there is very little absorption into the paper. Most importantly, there is no dry back of the inks after printing”. He continues “Traditionally sheets would need to be printed to standard conditions and then measured again 24 hours later. Once the difference between wet and dry are known we would then apply new values which would ensure the customer received print that was I.S.O. compliant in its dry, finished state as dictated by I.S.O. 12647-2. With LED UV and QualityPass this is a thing of the past”.
In addition, Mr Hunt finds the trend reporting functions to be of great value: “Being able to demonstrate colour consistency throughout a production run via the reports the software produces provides great reassurance for our customers”.
An major benefit of using KBA’s colour control systems ErgoTronic Colour Control and Qualitronic ColorControl is that they ‘tick all the boxes’ of standardised printing conditions as dictated by the I.S.O. 12647-2 standard. In order to comply with the requirements of the standard, several criteria need to be met. For example, all CIE Lab measurements must be made against a black or white backing in order to prevent contamination of measurements by show through from the previously printed side.
It is for the reason stated above that the designers of the ErgoTronic ColorControl desk insisted on a desk with a black surface. This is designed to absorb the reflected light from behind the print so only the measurements from the side currently being printed are captured. It is this attention to detail that ensures the highest level of quality analysis alongside the ultimate in process control from the QualiTronic ColorControl inline camera system. This highly reactive system ensures that the values on press are maintained with adjustments after every 10th sheet and a reduction in waste of up to 60%.
Blackmore have found that make ready times have dropped dramatically by using the all the measurement tools supplied by KBA. However, they have also found that with the addition of LED UV printing they can anticipate with a degree of certainty that what comes out of the press is a faithful reproduction to a proof or to a customer’s requirements. Skilled observers and quality conscious clients could not fail to be impressed by assessing the work produced daily by Mr. Hunt and his team at Blackmore Group.