GMG unveils color management enhancements

‘Label printers face increasingly shorter product cycles, ever more complex color and substrate combinations, and growing cost pressures. To compete successfully, proofing solutions have to be reliable and powerful,’ commented Paulo Monteiro, VP sales, GMG Americas. ‘GMG has been helping label printers for decades. GMG ColorProof has been utilized worldwide for accurate proofing, and GMG FlexoProof demonstrates that quality and standardization are not limited to offset printing. As the world's only solution to accurate simulation of the overprinting effects of spot colors,& GMG OpenColor separation profiles allow designers and pre-press companies to simulate different color combinations and production variables without having to go on press to check the results.’

GMG OpenColor

With the increasing use of multi-color printing and different combinations of inks, substrates, screening, and other variables, label printing involves a lot of color fingerprints and profile tweaking. GMG OpenColor is a proofing technology that precisely predicts the color appearance of printed inks, particularly ‘overprints’, without requiring extensive fingerprinting.

GMG OpenColor enables the measurement of full-tone patches from a print control strip, or even solid patches and tint patches on a running printed sheet and to create a profile from the captured spectral data. The company claims that this is something ‘no other profiling tool can achieve’. GMG OpenColor also includes a detection tool for optical brighteners. 

GMG OpenColor 2.2, shown for the first time at Labelexpo Americas, incorporates automatic, spectral data-based optimization of measurement data. When a user measures test charts or color patches, the data is combined with other parameters from the printing process to create a dynamic profile. This data needs to be optimized because erroneous test charts, poor substrate textures, dust – and even the measuring device itself – can all cause an excessive degree of distortion. Thanks to the automatic optimization of the measurement data, users can create a color-accurate profile in only a few steps – right within GMG OpenColor.

GMG OpenColor’s connections to third party applications include the Hybrid PackZpre-press tool suite for packaging and label production. Dynamic profiles can be created within GMG OpenColor and delivered to PackZ. This capability can generate complex multi-channel profiles from two to more than ten inks overprinting as required by the input PDF file. It can also produce final separations for 7-color expanded color gamut (ECG) processes. With a direct connection to the GMG ColorPlugin integrated in Photoshop, GMG OpenColor also offers a predictive, on-the-fly profiling for layers and/or selections, from CMYK to any combination of process colors and spot colors. The GMG ColorPlugin provides RGB-to-multicolor separations (up to seven colors) and makes manual color corrections and tedious work-arounds redundant, providing enormous prepress time-savings and in package printing.

GMG ColorProof/GMG FlexoProof

GMGColorProof and GMG ColorProof have been enhanced to support GMG OpenColor capabilities. To make proofing simpler and better, GMG OpenColor calculates high-precision profiles and automatically transfers them to GMG ColorProof/GMG FlexoProof for print. The input PDF triggers the automatic creation of the specific profile needed for ECG, without any operator intervention.

New features include an automatic image placement to optimize job layouts and minimize paper use. This pays off especially when it comes to manually configuring jobs that contain multiple labels.To configure workflows more efficiently, spot color sets can be copied from one workflow or printer to another. It’s also possible to assign spot color sets to all connected printers, which enables users to keep their set-up easily synchronized to their spot color database. This provides time savings, especially for power users who use multiple printers and load balancing. 

GMG OpenColor allows the creation of dot proof (screened) proofing profiles for use in GMG DotProof and GMG FlexoProof – helpful for determining the overprint properties with the benefit of halftone proofing.

On the booth, GMG shows printed samples taken from GMG ColorProof and GMG FlexoProof and the Epson SureColor S80600 series printer. Rather than providing visitors a rough prototype, they can see exactly, with accurate color, what the final product will look like, matched to the press. GMG offers the complete package: digital printer, software, the substrate, inks, and installation along with a choice of 26 different materials including shrink film.

GMG partners at Labelexpo

During Labelexpo Americas, a number of GMG partners will also be demonstrating solutions that include GMG color management, including Anderson & Vreeland (929), Epson America (5813), Hybrid Software (1353), MacDermid Graphics Solutions (528), Nilpeter (3205) and Techkon USA (5800).