Research progress in high fidelity printing technology
We are a big printing company in Shenzhen China . We offer all book publications, hardcover book printing, papercover book printing, hardcover notebook, sprial book printing, saddle stiching book printing, booklet printing,packaging box, calendars, all kinds of PVC, product brochures, notes, Children's book, stickers, all kinds of special paper color printing products, game cardand so on.
For more information please visit
http://www.joyful-printing.com. ENG only
http://www.joyful-printing.net
http://www.joyful-printing.org
email: info@joyful-printing.net
First, Overview of high fidelity technology
The concept of high-fidelity color printing has a long history. As early as the end of the 1990s, it began to enter the printing company's production workshop from the laboratory, which marked the beginning of a new era of color printing. Hi-Fi Color Printing is improved with respect to four-color printing by adding red, green, blue, orange, and other color inks to C, M, Y, and K four-color printing. Reproducibility and authenticity of printed colors. When printing with a better ink, due to the multi-color, the two colors in the four-color printing can be replaced with the primary colors in the high-fidelity to make the color more full. With the continuous improvement of people's pursuit of a better life, the requirements for the quality of printed matter are getting higher and higher. At present, high-fidelity printing technology has been increasingly used by printing companies. For color image printing, in addition to high-fidelity printing technology, there is no other technology that can really enlarge the printing color gamut of the image, making the image color brighter and brighter, closer to the natural scenery of the natural scenery, and achieving the highest level of printing quality.
Second, the key technology to achieve high fidelity printing
High fidelity color separation technology is the basis of high fidelity printing and is a key guarantee for printing quality. Since high fidelity printing uses more than four colors of ink to copy an original, conventional color separation methods are no longer suitable. After the high-fidelity printing process, the original will be multi-colored. The specific color number is determined according to the specific conditions of the original, and the ink product characteristics of different ink manufacturers are different, and the color separation system thus established also differs. Color separation software can create different color separation systems based on product and printing needs. There are currently six color separations, seven color separations and even more color separation systems. This color separation technology is more complex than the four-color separation technology. High-fidelity color separation technology is the core of high-fidelity printing technology. High-fidelity color separation is performed in the CIERGB color space. The input RGB color will get closer to the spectral color. And chromaticity characteristics, different primary color ink combinations respectively match the input color chromaticity parameters of different hue intervals. The setting of the primary color separation channel ensures that the printed color reaches the printing color gamut and achieves linearity. Compared with four-color printing, the high-fidelity printing color does not decrease in brightness to a certain extent because of the increase in saturation, which is simply impossible with conventional four-color printing. There are two main types of high-fidelity color separation modes currently known. One is a color separation model set up in an interactive graphical interface represented by ICISS, and the other is a high-fidelity color lookup table (CLUTs) fixed color separation model represented by Pantone Hexarome.
Third, the status quo of high fidelity printing
1. Research status
High-fidelity color printing technology is the research content that emerged in the mid-1990s. Some internationally renowned companies, such as HEIDELBERG in Germany, AGFA, DUPONT in the US, PANTONE, and AURELON in the Netherlands have all made useful explorations in this regard.
1Hell and Crosfield's HyperColor high-fidelity color separation program.
1.1 Linotype-Hell's high-fidelity color technology reads the color information in two scans: the first time reading CMYK information, the second reading the other three color information, and completing the high-level gray component in the first step of scanning. Alternative. The company uses the VSF color system and has a certain expansion in the direction of orange, emerald and purple. In order to match the existing proofing and four-color printing processes, the HyperColor solution only uses CMYK as the basic color. When the color separation, seven color separation films are generated, and the same color is printed once the CMYK reaches 100%. HyperColor can use conventional screening technology to make prints with 0-200% tonal variation with a maximum density of 2.2.
1.2 Sai Angel's high fidelity color technology.
Scitex's high-fidelity solution uses four basic colors of CMYK and their complementary colors, namely CMYK+RGB to form seven-color printing. During scanning, only one scan is performed for RGB, and the input RGB file is decomposed into a CMYK file and a printing RGB file during processing, and the two files can perform image density correction and color adjustment in an interactive manner. At the same time).
1.3 Barco's dedicated multicolor separation software.
Barco's prepress system, the SGI movement's workstation with a range of professional software, including a software called Ink Switch, supports high-fidelity color printing technology and a variety of special ink formulations. Users using the Barco system first read the data of the inactive color into the workstation through a spectrodensitometer. When performing color separation, the Ink Switch first converts the data into a CIE color scale, and then performs a second conversion according to the specified ink color system to generate a corresponding color separation sheet. The software will give a warning when an unrepresentable color appears.
1.4 Pantone Hexachrome high fidelity color separation program.
The basic point of Hexachrome's printing ideas is the six primary colors. It takes the most basic CMYK four-color ink and adds green and orange for color reproduction. After adding these two colors, the printing gamut is significantly expanded. In addition, Hexachrome can accurately reproduce 90% of Pantone spot colors, while traditional CMYK can only match 55% of Pantone spot colors. The Hexachrome separation is implemented using a color separation software called Hexware, which includes plug-ins for some Adobe software. It consists of two models, one of which is HexImage, which is used for color correction and color separation, which divides a color image into six separate grayscale images. At present, research on high-fidelity printing in China is still in its infancy, and individual research units have conducted research and experiments on it, but they have not yet formed a mature program. The high-fidelity color separation technology was first introduced by the Computer Research Institute of Peking University in 1994. It is a color separation software that can achieve seven-color separation. It lays the foundation for high-fidelity color separation technology. Later, Peking University Founder Technology Research Institute also launched high-fidelity color. Printing Technology. In 2002, the SOLOR2.1 high-fidelity color printing complete set technology system based on the results of the “High-definition and high-fidelity color printing technology research” of the Ministry of Science and Technology Technology Innovation Fund project was successfully developed. The technology research and development unit was “turnkey project”. Ways to conduct on-site technical training and production guidance for the company until the actual production of qualified products.
2. Application status of high fidelity printing
In foreign countries, high-fidelity printing has been applied in commercial printing, and as a development direction of sheetfed offset printing, its market prospects are promising. For example, Hexchrome high-fidelity printing is a multi-color double-sided printing process with single-channel, multi-color printing, high profitability and high productivity. Japanese printing technology is known for its high quality and fine printing. In the field of multi-color printing, printing equipment of 8 colors or more has entered the Japanese market, and the format is mostly off, and some even up to 10 colors and 12 colors. At the same time, 8-color A2 format and 6-color A3 format printing machines also landed on the market. In addition, 5-color double-sided presses have also appeared in commercial printing, but from a cost-saving perspective, product development will focus on web presses.
In China, although high-fidelity printing has achieved certain stage results, for a long period of time, people's understanding of it only stays on the surface, combined with software, equipment, personnel and other restrictions, making it develop for a while. It is slower. At present, high-fidelity printing is still in the research and experimental stage in China, and is not widely used in commercial printing, but this does not mean that there is no market for high-fidelity printing. Many people think that high-fidelity printing is not commercially viable. A more common view is that modern printing can already print very good color images using some efficient solutions compared to before. The use of multi-color printing means improved workflow, and increased printing time due to increased print color. Using some of the current technologies, such as random dots and waterless offset printing, can already meet the current printing.
3. Restrictive factors of high fidelity printing
The use of high fidelity printing will increase production costs and the technical requirements for the production process. For example, to use more plates and inks, the cost is higher than four-color printing. In addition, there are some factors that limit high-fidelity printing to replace traditional four-color printing, such as the widespread use of multi-color printing presses, the cost of adding film, plates, proofing, and ink. In addition, creating effective color separations and combining high-fidelity pages is also an important factor limiting the popularity of technology. The use of high fidelity technology requires the addition of color separation software. High fidelity technology also increases the performance requirements of the press, generally requiring more printing units or requiring multiple presses.
3.1 insufficient demand.
Insufficient market demand is one of the most important reasons why high fidelity cannot be popularized and promoted. The market competition in the printing industry is gradually becoming standardized and formalized, and the market competition is relatively moderate, making it less urgent for printers and customers to adopt new technologies and personalized printing to improve competitiveness. The lack of market demand is why many printers simply do not consider the introduction of high-fidelity printing.
3.2 high cost.
The price of the supporting facilities required for high-fidelity printing itself is high, and more colors and inks are used for multi-color printing. In addition, there are cost problems of adding film, plate, and proofing. The domestic PS version does not produce the delicate dots required for high-fidelity printing, and even if it succeeds in achieving the printing, it cannot be successfully transferred to the printed matter. The technical development of domestic equipment and raw materials has not kept up. The direct consequence is that most of the high-grade plates and inks used in high-fidelity printing rely on imports, which greatly increases the cost, which also restricts the promotion of high-fidelity.
3.3 process lag.
High-fidelity technology increases the performance requirements of the press and must be achieved with a 6-color press, which is expensive and complicated to operate. Second, the problem of creating effective color separations and combining high-fidelity pages is one of the factors limiting the popularity of these technologies. The use of high-fidelity technology requires the addition of color separation software, while the currently used page combination and proofing methods are easier and cheaper. Again, the plates used in high-fidelity printing require that the photographic particles be very delicate. Finally, high-fidelity technology has high requirements for manuscripts. Nowadays, high-quality manuscripts are rarely seen in China, usually ordinary photos, and it is difficult to ensure the completion of high-quality printing. These technical reasons limit the promotion of high fidelity to some extent.
3.4 lack of talent.
In 2000, the Ministry of Science and Technology began to research high-fidelity color technology. In 2002, China had its own research results. It can be seen that the time for high fidelity to enter China is still too short. Although it has overcome difficulties in technology, the talent pool is seriously insufficient. The whole process of high-fidelity printing from product design, plate-making to post-press processing is very strict, and the lack of relevant technical personnel also affects the promotion and application of high-fidelity. Only by increasing capital investment and improving the level of process operation and management of employees, can high-fidelity printing enter the Chinese market.
Fourth, the development trend of high fidelity printing
As people's requirements for printing quality continue to increase, high-fidelity printing technology with added value will gradually become practical and commercialized, bringing benefits to printing companies. From the current market point of view, there are many prints that require high-fidelity printing. For example, high-fidelity printing of high-fidelity simulations of high-quality paintings that require extremely high printing quality and restoration effects can restore the famous painting effect in real and clear, enhance the appreciation effect and collection value. . For commercial printing of advertisements, the use of high-fidelity printing will leave a deeper impression on people and improve the publicity effect. For the prints that require high quality and can be enjoyed for a long time, as well as the printing of packaging materials for the packaging, there is a great demand for high-fidelity printing. A new generation of printing technology with high-fidelity color printing technology as the core will become the mainstream printing technology for high-end prints in the 21st century. Although there are still some factors that are not conducive to the popularity of high-fidelity printing, these are not insurmountable obstacles. In the era of high development of digital technology, the demand for printing customers has exceeded the level that traditional media can achieve. High-fidelity technology provides a new method for high-quality customers that is different from ordinary printing. With the development of technology, high-fidelity technology will become more flexible and more acceptable. Printing must catch up with customers' needs. High-fidelity printing is a step in this direction. As the market grows, the use of high-fidelity printing will increase.