More spot color accuracy, more ink savings, more speed
Alwan Color Expertise, a world-leader in color management and process control software announces version 7.6.0 of its leading color management and ink saving software Alwan ColorHub. This new version has been optimized for digital printing presses as it offers increased spot color accuracy, ink savings, and PDF-VT processing speed.
Alwan’s PDF color server Alwan ColorHub has been originally designed in 2001 to help conventional printers better predict and control the color and the cost of their production.
With more than 1,500 servers used daily to optimize millions of jobs, Alwan ColorHub is considered today as a leading software in its category.
However, the fast increase of high volume digital printing and our partnership with Konica Minolta for their flagship digital press AccurioJet KM-1 taught us that there is strong need and room for improvement for digital presses as well.
Alwan ColorHub version 7 – and even more so with version 7.6.0 – addresses digital printing specifics and takes spot color accuracy, ink savings and production speed to unmatched levels.
Elie Khoury – Alwan Founder and President
Spot color accuracy thanks to Hydra Profiling® technology
Matching spot colors on a digital press is a challenge as digital presses do not have spot ink units as conventional presses do.
Therefore, moving jobs containing spot colors from conventional to digital printing is often disappointing or not done at all.
With its patented Hydra Profiling® spectral technology, Alwan ColorHub is able to create a profile of the production device, to predict its spot color reproduction capabilities, and use Hydra® profile for the spot to device colors conversions.
Result is that 10%+ more spot colors are matched with ∆E00 2 compared to conventional CIELAB based profiles.
More ink savings thanks to Minimum TAC & Ink Usage color separation technology
Digital printers use digital ink, also called digital gold due to their price.
Moreover, these inks are device dependant and do not have the same color or characteristics as conventional inks do.
For these reasons, conventional UCR/GCR black-generation-based color separation is not optimal for digital inks.
Alwan’s unique Minimum TAC and Ink Usage (MTIU) technology uses Hydra® profiles to optimize the color separation for digital inks and digital devices.
Result is 10%+ more ink savings and color accuracy compared to conventional GCR and CIELAB based color separation.
Production speed thanks to multi-page, multi-thread processing technology
Some digital printing applications such as books and variable data require special processing strategies in order to use the full power of the used computer or server.
Alwan ColorHub 7+ versions use new multi-processor, multi-thread processing technology that optimizes PDF processing speed.
Result is a decrease of processing time by a factor of 2 to 10 depending on the computer and the job.
When we recently interviewed a representative sample of our users, we found out that most of them were able to move previous offset jobs containing spot colors to digital printing without any problem.
On the contrary, their feedback was that, because of decreasing print numbers and increasing color expectations, they were more confident and making more money now printing spot colors using their digital press with Alwan ColorHub.
Elie Khoury – Alwan Founder and President
