Features Colour Control Premedia
X-Rite Expands PantoneLIVE for Gravure

X-Rite Inc., together with subsidiary Pantone LLC, has expanded its PantoneLIVE cloud-based technology, designed for communicating colour via digital networks, with the addition of six new colour libraries for gravure printing.

The company also released PantoneLIVE Visualizer, a new software tool that aims to help graphic designers, brands and print suppliers better compare, evaluate and visualize colours across multiple substrates and printing technologies. The goal of Visualizer, free to existing PantoneLIVE users, is to show variability in colour is the result of changes in the base material, printing process and ink types. Visualizer delivers an on-screen visualization of Pantone Master colours (target) and achievable PantoneLIVE Dependent colours.

X-Rite explains that sometimes, due to the realities of production materials and processes, the desired Pantone Master Standard colour cannot be achieved with the target substrate and printing technology. Pantone Dependent Standards are designed to represent desired Master Standards in these cases, and are the Pantone-approved best match to the Master standards. With PantoneLIVE Visualizer, users can now visually compare and assess colour selections in a variety of production scenarios. Results from Visualizer can be exported into print-ready PDF documents that can be shared across the supply chain to better communicate design intent.

“PantoneLIVE was created to help share accurate and achievable colours across a package printing supply chain,” said Adrián Fernández, VP, PantoneLIVE, X-Rite. “In partnership with our customers, we are continuously evolving the platform to support a wide range of packaging applications and help designers easily visualize on-screen how colour palettes will appear in production.”

Fernández continued to explain PantoneLIVE now offers more than 50,000 Pantone colour choices and supports 80 percent of packaging applications: “By increasing the depth and scope of PantoneLIVE, designers and brands are able speed up the entire packaging design process and get products to market on average four times faster.”

PantoneLIVE’s six new libraries for gravure printing are ultimately aimed at the production of flexible and label applications. Two of the new libraries, according to X-Rite, are designed to help brands and converters match colour on increasingly popular metallized flexible packaging and label structures.

The new PantoneLIVE libraries include:

Labels gravure process using solvent ink printed on coated paper with gloss-neutral varnish;

Flexible packaging gravure process using solvent ink printed on clear film substrate with gloss-neutral varnish;

Flexible packaging gravure process using solvent ink printed on clear film substrate over white ink with gloss-neutral varnish;

Flexible packaging gravure process using solvent ink reverse printed on clear film substrate over white ink;

Flexible packaging gravure process using solvent ink reverse printed on clear film substrate over white ink laminated to aluminum; and

Flexible packaging gravure process using solvent ink printed on aluminum substrate over white ink with gloss-neutral varnish.