Techkon USA, a supplier of high-precision color measurement systems for packaging and commercial printers, has announced an expanded family of ChromaQA color quality products designed to help printers improve their color matching capabilities, shorten their make-readies, and reduce their waste so they can remain competitive on price and maintain their profitability.  With ChromaQA, operators are not required to be highly skilled users of spectrophotometers or computers. Instead, these new solutions are designed for simplicity and quickly guide press operators and ink technicians alike to the optimum color match using color science and the elimination of color “guesswork."

This new expanded family of ChromaQA solutions allows printers to choose the right solution for their color production environment and includes the following:

• ChromaQA INK– Global Ink Management.  Designed for packaging or commercial printers, of any size, that need a more efficient way to store, manage, and share color standards throughout their organization.  ChromaQA INK will save time and money by quickly locating colors for jobs and identifying when new colors and drawdowns must be created for customers.  In addition, the solution allows ink technicians to perform quality control tests on new batches of ink to ensure all colors are within specification before they reach the pressroom.
• ChromaQA LITE – Simplified Spot Color Matching.  Aimed at packaging printers who are looking for a more affordable solution that is easier to deploy in the pressroom and ink department.  It provides a focused feature set that enables press operators to get up to color faster and stay on color throughout the press run.  Designed for ease of use, ChromaQA LITE provides color matching feedback that is easy to understand, actionable, and with clear pass/fail indications while job reporting facilitates communication with both internal quality groups and external brand customers.
• ChromaQA SUITE – Easier Process & Spot Color Make-Readies.  An enterprise color quality solution tailored for packaging printers who wish to improve the color accuracy of their ink supply chain, shorten pressroom make-readies, and ensure color consistency across each press run.  ChromaQA SUITE is designed for spot colors, 4C process work, ECG jobs, and tracking G7 compliance.  In addition, job reporting, data query, and customized scorecards provide visibility for external brand customers, internal quality managers, and facilitate continuous process improvements.

“Besides the cost savings and color matching benefits in the pressroom, all ChromaQA solutions include our ink management module which is extremely powerful and has really earned praises from packaging printers who often times must maintain thousands and thousands of color standards," says Stephen Rankin, director of product management for Techkon USA.  “Our cloud-based ink management module greatly simplifies this process and gives printers the tools they need to easily store, locate, manage, share, and even QC their inks before they reach the pressroom floor. Today, the QC tools have been expanded beyond just ∆E to include important metrics such as Ink Strength, Metamerism Index, Contrast Ratio and Opacity. This module provides accountability and traceability into ink production issues and promotes communication between the ink and press departments resulting in more accurate and consistent color on press.”