ColourCheck allows printers to prove they’ve got it right
With the release at Fespa of Onyx v18 software for wide-format printers, the eponymous RIP and workflow developer has switched to the Adobe PDF Print Engine (APPE) across its range.
The main focus of the new release is colour accuracy and predictability across the wide range of supported printer vendors’ machines, print technologies and across production sites, with the ability to prove accuracy and consistency via a Colour Check report based on spectrophotometer readings. Timed calibration with a “traffic light” system of reminders allows conformity with print standards, such as Fogra or US G7 specifications as well as controlling consistency.
Integral to this is the move to using the APPE in all Onyx products – previously the stand-alone RIP products used the Jaws RIP from Global Graphics, while the Thrive wide-format workflow was APPE-based. Existing customers for the former will get APPE as part of the upgrade.
Mark Lewiecki, senior product manager at Adobe, told Digital Printer that the ‘same core PDF technology that is used in the Creative Cloud applications and Acrobat is consistent throughout. What Acrobat shows is what prints.’
This is also supported by the use in Onyx 18 of iccMax profiles, the first commercial implementation of a new spectral data-based version of ICC colour profiling technology that is designed to bring greater consistency across different digital print technologies with differing colour gamuts, including textile printing. The software provides users with controls for maintaining colour saturation and overall quality in dye-sub printing, for example, while also handling a wide number of spot colours. Ink saving has previously been a feature of Onyx software and this is now extended to digital textile printing where more than 30% savings are said to be possible.
A free cloud-based 30-day trial is available.
