ColorMetrix will be partnering again with the Roland Academy to present the second installment of the Color Control Myths & Mysteries series at 11 a.m. CST on Wednesday, April 24. The presentation again will be conducted online and the webinar is free and you can register here.

ColorMetrix has made a commitment in 2013 to participate in and provide original educational resources and events for the print industry throughout the year. Some of these will be conducted through partnerships such as the upcoming Roland Academy webinar.

In the first installment of the Color Control Myths & Mysteries presentation, CEO Jim Raffel and Project Manager Shelby Sapusek presented seven different color control myths and mysteries and offered solutions that work for the shop floor. You can view the first webinar from Jan. 15, 2013, by clicking here.

In the second installment on April 24, Raffel and Sapusek will delve deeper into color theory topics such as how the human eye perceives color, the differences between RGB and CMYK and the definition of Delta E.

In the four-part webinar series, Raffel and Sapusek debate color process control from their respective backgrounds of print technologist and newspaper production professional. On one side of the argument, there is someone who knows about the technology that makes color management work and on the other side someone who just wants the color to be correct and predictable all of the time. The goal of the Color Control Myths & Mysteries webinar series is to eliminate color confusion in the printing environment.

You can join the Roland Academy and the ColorMetrix team for this free, one-hour educational opportunity by clicking the button below.

We are pleased to officially announce our accredited partner status with X-Rite Pantone. This agreement will give our customers a seamless way to access the PantoneLIVE color library. ColorMetrix solutions will provide a seamless user interface for PantoneLIVE.

PantoneLIVE and ColorMetrix developers plan to launch during summer 2013.

The official press release is below. Meanwhile, if you have any questions about ColorMetrix solutions, PantoneLIVE or the partnership, please contact us.

ColorMetrix and X-Rite Pantone
Partnership Announcement

Grand Rapids, Michigan (PRWEB) April 04, 2013

X-Rite Inc. with its wholly owned subsidiary Pantone LLC has reached an agreement with ColorMetrix Technologies LLC to offer a seamless way for users of its VerifiedColor software to fully utilize the power of PantoneLIVE™ Color Libraries.

“Packagers, converters, wide-format printers and other customers that use VerifiedColor software to validate colors will save time and improve the accuracy of workflows throughout their supply chains with the new PantoneLIVE user interface,” said James Raffel, CEO of ColorMetrix.

ColorMetrix, a Milwaukee-based developer and provider of color validation software, is currently developing the VerifiedColor version that connects with PantoneLIVE, with an expected launch date in summer. X-Rite Pantone is a worldwide leader in color standards and the design and manufacture of color management solutions for printing, packaging, photography, graphic design, video, and industrial applications.

“We believe PantoneLIVE will add value to both of our respective clients looking to streamline their color verification process,” Raffel said. “VerifiedColor takes custom spot color libraries and manages them with a state-of-the-art workflow and database system.”

PantoneLIVE is a cloud-based, color management service that is supported by an ecosystem of industry-leading solutions and that maintains digital color libraries to guarantee accurate color communication for any supplier around the world. Brand owners and other approved members of the supply chain can manage digital access rights and facilitate color communication across packaging materials from design to production – helping minimize color revisions, creating go-to-market efficiencies and ultimately lowering development costs.

“We are very pleased to be working with ColorMetrix on providing this solution to its customers, many of whom use Pantone’s universal color language,” said Iain Pike, market director for PantoneLIVE. “Our new relationship with ColorMetrix is another example of how software providers and developers can tap into the power of PantoneLIVE seamlessly as a way to add value to their products in a relatively inexpensive manner.”

About ColorMetrix
ColorMetrix Technologies LLC has been providing cloud-based software worldwide for end-to-end verification that color is in control during the design and print process since 1994. The verification software for virtual and hard-copy processes includes monitors, ink jet proofs and press products. ColorMetrix serves industry leaders in packaging, proofing and brand color management.

About X-Rite
X-Rite, Incorporated, is the global leader in color science and technology. The company with its wholly owned subsidiary Pantone LLC develops, manufactures, markets and supports innovative color solutions through measurement systems, software, color standards and services. X-Rite’s expertise in inspiring, selecting, measuring, formulating, communicating and matching color helps users get color right the first time and every time, which translates to better quality and reduced costs. X-Rite serves a range of industries, including printing, packaging, photography, graphic design, video, automotive, paints, plastics, textiles, dental and medical. For further information, please visit http://www.xrite.com.

In October, we introduced our Normalizer technology to the print industry at Graph Expo in Chicago. Today, we are excited to announce that Normalizer has been selected as a nominee of Wide Format Imaging magazine’s Reader’s Top Choice Product Awards.

Each year, Wide Format Imaging magazine invites those in the industry to vote for products and technology that has proven valuable to the print community. Categories range from media for vehicle wraps and fine arts to different types of printers.

Our Normalizer technology provides an option to take a spectral reflectance curve of a target color and then lets unique algorithms created by our developers adjust that color for variables such as illuminant, observer and even the instruments used to take the measurements. It has been actively used in the industry for nearly a year. Wide Format Imaging has placed Normalizer in the Prepress Color Management Hardware and Software category in its Reader’s Choice Product Awards.

There are some great products in the same category; such as Color Engine 12 from EskoArtwork, i1Publish Pro 2 from X-rite/Pantone and SpotOn! Verify. We are happy to be in such good company in the industry.

We’d like to invite our print friends, clients and colleagues to vote in the Reader’s Choice Product Awards. Of course, we’d love to earn your vote for Normalizer in its category; but we really want to encourage you to vote for products in any and all categories you find relevant to your business.

Winners of the Reader’s Choice Product Awards will be announced at International Sign Expo 2013 on April 3-6, 2013, in Las Vegas. Voting ends on Feb. 19, 2013.

How to Vote

The Reader’s Choice Product Awards voting process is fueled by Question Pro. After the introduction page, there are two pages of categories in which votes can be cast. Voters can vote in all categories or as few as one if they choose. The only requirement is that voters must enter their name, business and email address at the bottom of the second page before votes will be counted. (The Color Management category in which Normalizer is a nominee is fourth from the bottom of the second page.)

Please note that Wide Format Imaging magazine will not count votes from a product’s distributor, manufacturer or supplier to avoid ballot stuffing. Votes submitted for a product by a person directly involved with that product will be tossed out.

On Jan. 15, CEO Jim Raffel and project manager Shelby Sapusek participated in ColorMetrix’s second webinar in partnership with the Roland Academy. This time, the focus of their presentation was seven color control myths and mysteries related to the inkjet printing industry.

In the Color Myths and Mysteries presentation, two points of view are given; one from a color technician and the other from the perspective of a graphic designer in prepress. Topics included statements such as “Prints look the same in all lighting conditions” and “Swatchbook colors are easily reproduced.” Each of the seven topics were discussed and debated during the hour-long free webinar. Throughout the presentation, attendees were encouraged to post questions which were answered at the end.

Nearly 200 people signed up for this latest webinar and the moderators fielded some excellent questions about the presentation and color control in general. If you were unable to attend this webinar, you are invited to view the video at the beginning of this post or by clicking here.

ColorMetrix has made a commitment in 2013 to participate in and provide original educational resources and events. This partnership with the Roland Academy has served as a great gateway for sharing information within the print industry.

If you have any ideas for future webinars or know of a print specific event where the color control myths and mysteries presentation might be of value, please contact us or leave a comment below.

ColorMetrix again will be partnering with the Roland Academy in a free webinar about solving the color control myths and mysteries of ink jet printing on Tuesday, Jan. 15, at 11 a.m. CST.

ColorMetrix has made a commitment in 2013 to participate in and provide original educational resources and events for the print industry throughout the year. Some of these will be conducted through partnerships such as the upcoming Roland Academy webinar.

In this one-hour session, CEO Jim Raffel and Project Manager Shelby Sapusek will present seven different color control myths and mysteries and offer solutions that work for the shop floor. The seven topics are represented in the graphic above.

Raffel and Sapusek will debate color process control from their respective backgrounds of print technologist and newspaper production professional. On one side of the argument, there is someone who knows about the technology that makes color management work and on the other side someone who just wants the color to be correct and predictable all of the time. The goal of the webinar is to eliminate color confusion in the printing environment.

You can join the ColorMetrix team for this free, one-hour educational opportunity by clicking the button below.

If you’re unable to make the webinar due to scheduling conflicts, a video will be posted on the ColorMetrix site in upcoming weeks.

The team would also like to invite you to suggest topics for future educational seminars. Please leave a comment below if you have an idea for a session.

Last week, we traveled to New Orleans to attend the PRIMIR (Print Industries Market Information and Research Organization) meeting. PRIMIR funds and prepares extensive studies on trends in the graphics and print industry.

The three-day meeting provided presentations from previous studies, and break-out sessions to focus on future studies. The attendees were very diverse; coming from companies such as Xerox, Canon, Mimeo and Polytype America. Our varying backgrounds and experiences made for interesting conversations in the break-out groups as well as the networking events during the meeting.

A brief overview

The presentations were full of insights on the future of print, media and marketing from industry experts. The findings were backed up by research so following the trends and predicting the coming years seemed easy. We weren’t able to attend every session, but here’s a brief overview of some that we were able to attend.

Emerging Applications for Printing Technology, presented by Tom Ashley of Pivotal Resources USA

This was a technical presentation focusing on printed electronics and displays as well as security printing. One of the most significant aspects of this study was the market growth for 3D printing. Ashley was quoted as saying that it would eventually “change the world.”

Defining and Understanding Communications Platform Trends, presented by John Zarwin of J. Zarwan Partners

This study was sponsored by NPES, the umbrella organization that PRIMIR is part of, and sought to discover the implications for the print value chain based on advertising and marketing trends. It was clear from the numbers that the marketing venues of 10 years ago (newspapers, magazines, radio and television) are not the major players they were a decade ago as far as advertising dollars go. Digital media (read: social media, search, banner ads, etc.) is not going to stop growing anytime soon. It will always be changing; but it will continue to grow. What hasn’t changed is marketers’ main goal: brand building. It doesn’t matter where it happens; but it needs to happen.

Impact of Integrated Marketing on the Printing Industry, presented by Lisa Cross and Norman McLeod of InfoTrends

It wasn’t a big surprise to find out that the top five growth markets for advertising were automotive, financial services, food and beverage, health care and retail. These are all markets that just about everyone uses consistently. What was a surprise was to hear that of the $201.4 billion spent on advertising in the U.S. in 2011, 50 percent was print. And they say print is dead.

The Mobile Media Revolution: Will Print Become a Luxury Item?, presented by Roman Hohol of AMEC

Despite the findings in the previous study, Hohol answered his own question quite clearly at the very beginning of his presentation: Yes. Print will become a luxury item. Much of his opinion was based on the decline of the newspaper industry. He showed a picture of a woman enjoying a cup of coffee and reading a newspaper over breakfast. The next slide was a picture of the same woman reading the news on her iPad. It’s difficult to deny this particular trend; although his stance caused some great discussion among the group. We are, after all, print lovers and we don’t like to hear that it might become partially obsolete.

eCommerce and Print Business Models, presented by Riley McNultry, Bryan Yeager and Stephanie Pieruccini of InfoTrends

Of course, we had great interest in this topic. Much of our sales are through eCommerce and our clients are in the print industry. We were happy to hear that print eCommerce is growing and listened hard to this research group’s recommendations for software developers in this field. We’re not sure that we play “follow the leader” in our industry, but we definitely are open to partnering with customers or potential customers for further development. We do some of that already.

The overall takeaway

I asked our CEO Jim Raffel to give me a two-sentence overall takeaway from the PRIMIR Winter Meeting. What he said wraps it up beautifully:

Money is going to move to the new choices. TV, radio and print will remain viable; but the growth is search and social.

It’s that time of year when most leaves on trees have either colored or fallen completely from their branches. The exceptions are, of course, evergreen trees. As seen in the accompanying image, evergreen trees stand out in the fall and winter next to the bare branches of their cousin trees.

The life of a leaf

Deciduous trees are ones that drop their leaves in the colder – but more importantly less lighted – months. In warmer months with lots of sunshine and high humidity, leaves remain green as they collect sunlight and go through photosynthesis. The chlorophyll used during this process is what makes the leaves keep their green color. As sunlight wanes in colder seasons, less and less photosynthesis is occurring and the leaves begin to lose their green and turn different colors as they “die.” Eventually, they become so unnecessary that the tree drops them from its branches completely.

However, the job of a leaf doesn’t actually end there. When it falls from a tree onto its roots, it joins thousands of others and together they break down into a kind of compost to supply nutrients to the soil and then to the tree. This not only allows the tree to survive a harsh winter; but provides the nutrition necessary for the tree to produce thousands more leaves in the spring so that the photosynthesis process can begin again. Deciduous trees enter a kind of dormancy period while they wait for warmer months.

Why evergreens retain color year-round

Most evergreen trees are coniferous – or cone-bearing. Their “leaves” are very different from deciduous trees to the point that they aren’t considered leaves at all. They are more like needles and they have many benefits that help a tree retain their color.

Evergreen needles are narrower and more compact than deciduous broad leaves. This and their wax-like covering allows them to retain more water so that they can photosynthesize year-round and, therefore, keep their color. Evergreens replace their needles slowly throughout the year. They need less soil nutrition than deciduous trees.

But evergreens aren’t always green

You may notice that in the section above, we said that evergreens “retain their color” and not that they “remain green.” That’s because the botany term “evergreen” isn’t actually accurate in the sense that these trees and bushes are all green in color.

Evergreens come in a variety of colors such as blue-green, yellow gold or chartreuse. Some evergreens can even change color in autumn and winter due to colder temperatures just like deciduous trees. Why then are they referred to as evergreens?

The true definition of an evergreen is simply a tree or bush that retains its leaves (or needles) year-round. Just for fun, click here for a landscape photo of a variety of different colored evergreens. Interestingly, color has nothing to do with being an evergreen.

Photo credit

On Nov. 13, our CEO Jim Raffel and Project Manager Shelby Sapusek joined Matt Huber, Marketing Premedia Manager at JCPenney, to present “Color Control Myths and Mysteries” at the annual Gravure Publishing and Premedia Conference (GPPC)  in Naples, Fla. The panel discussion kicked off the second full day of the conference.

As noted in the GPPC newsletter, the three panelists provided unique perspectives from their respective backgrounds as a production director in a newsroom, a prepress manager and a color technician.

The seven color control myths

The session began with the simple statement: “You can always trust your eyes.” Anyone who’s ever worked on any part of the printing spectrum knows this isn’t always the case. To prove the point, the panel shared a series of optical illusions with attendees. From there, the panel spent the next hour debunking and explaining six other myths concerning concepts such as soft (online or monitor) proof accuracy and metamarism. The image at left displays all seven myths that were covered in the session.

There were two vital points our panel stressed to the audience during the session:

1. It’s important to make a commitment to color quality by investing in the right tools and workflow technology. This can come in the form of up-to-date displays and instrumentation such as spectrophotometers.
2. Jim Raffel was quoted as saying: We are dealing with “the technology of color versus the feeling of color” and trying to marry the two.

At the end of the day, the panelists joined up again in a special breakout session for attendees to further discuss color management and workflow systems in a one-on-one environment.

It wasn’t all about color

The GPPC isn’t all about color; that was just our topic for our sessions. While we couldn’t participate in all of the sessions during the three-day conference, here are some that stood out for us:

“Energy and the Prospects for Economic Growth” presented by Bud Weinstein, Associate Director of the Maguire Energy Institute

What we learned: The economy is on a little upswing but still has a long way to go. The figures Weinstein shared about the declining housing market were astounding and not in a good way. However, he was able to take a close look at the current economy and the projected results post-election. His presentation was complemented with various charts to further illustrate his points.

“Utilizing Mobile to Collect CRM Data” presented by John Fauller, COO of Snipp Interactive Inc.

What we learned: About 10 percent of all internet activity is accessed by mobile right now. We honestly thought that figure would be higher with the number of users with smart phones these days. There’s also still a lot of fear in using mobile; specifically when it comes to privacy, geolocation and banking access.

Collaboration Through Connection presented by Tom Carroll, EVP Chief Human Resources Officer of RR Donnelley

What we learned: Carroll is known for being an energetic speaker and he didn’t disappoint at this year’s GPPC. During his two-hour talk, we had to really think about how our mobile devices controlled our lives. He asked us to turn on our cell phones and put them on audible for the first 15 minutes of his presentation so that we could listen to the amount of disruption they could cause when calls, reminders, texts, etc. rang through. On the flip side, we then had to turn them completely off for 15 minutes. Several audience members commented on how this actually made them anxious. We discussed how many people kept cell phones by their beds while sleeping and how we set up mobile offices even while on vacation. This all led into a conversation about how we needed to turn it all off sometimes to be able to be innovative and inventive to collaborate in business.

 If you attended GPPC this year, please feel free to share your experiences in the comments section. We’d love to continue the conversations!

Photo Credit

Last week, our CEO Jim Raffel previewed our “Color Control Myths and Mysteries” talk, which we will be presenting at the GAA Publishing and Premedia Conference next week. In his preview, he introduced an interesting optical illusion and discussed whether or not we could trust our eyes when it comes to color.

Indeed, trusting our eyes to correctly identify color will be our opening for our presentation; but we have several other myths – or shall we say misconceptions – that we plan to talk about as well.

The graphic included with this post will be one of our introductory slides in our presentation. It displays seven different color myths; each of which we’ll debate from the point of view of a color technician (Jim) versus a creative or graphic designer (me).

The complication of color confusion

These myths that Jim and I plan to discuss next week are all common misconceptions that make communication between printers and creatives difficult and sometimes lead to what we refer to as color confusion.

In my former career as primarily a graphic designer, I didn’t care how color was created or why it failed when it did. I only wanted the color that I used in my design to appear correctly in the printed piece. I didn’t like being told by a printer that I couldn’t place a predominantly yellow ad on a certain page in the newspaper because it was on the same printing form as a page with an orange ad.

To be fair, the environments I worked in didn’t necessarily encourage or utilize color correcting techniques such as monitor calibration or process control in general. Still, color confusion was ever present and frustration was felt by me as well as the printing companies with which I worked.

It is precisely these types of real-world experiences and anecdotes that Jim and I plan to incorporate into our “Color Control Myths and Mysteries” presentation.

Check back next week for more insight

Since our presentation takes place on Tuesday, Nov. 13, we will post about our takeaways from the talk and the conference in general later in the week. We hope to be able to share our experiences with you then.

In the meantime, if you have any suggestions or experiences you’d like to share about color confusion, myths and mysteries, please feel free to leave a comment below.

In two weeks, Shelby Sapusek and I will be speaking at the GAA Publishing and Premedia Conference. Our Tuesday morning general session is entitled “Color Control Myths and Mysteries,” and then later that afternoon we’ll have a breakout session for color control questions and answers. The presentation will be unique in that Shelby will bring her 17 years experience with newspaper design, editing and production to the conversation while I’ll bring almost 30 years of expertise making color technology work.

As we prepare for the presentation, we are going to share some of our research and planning. This week I’ll share how we plan to kick the presentation off with some color optical illusions like the one pictured above.

Can you trust your eyes with color?

It’s been said – and I agree – that your eyes are one of the best color evaluation instruments available. The problem is your eyes can be fooled. Sometimes they are fooled by simple understandable things like surround colors. That’s what you’re seeing in the image above and you can view the interactive version of the illusion at the e-chalk website.

In the example, squares “A” and “B” are the same color. Your eye can be easily fooled by these types of surround color issues. Your eyes can also be fooled when they are tired or as you age. As a 48-year-old male, it’s unlikely I can see yellow as well as Shelby (who is younger) can.

Another area to be concerned about is the light source used to illuminate your printed piece. Some ink combinations will result in a phenomena called metamerism. This occurs when the same sample appears to be different colors under different light sources such as daylight, incandescent or florescent as three examples.

Check back next week for more hints about our talk

I don’t want to give too much away and steal all Shelby’s thunder for next week. Make sure to check back in a week when Shelby will share the main topic areas we plan to make part of our presentation at the conference.

Also, it’s not to late to join us at the conference. You can learn more and register here.