SpotOn! Flexo is a simple pressroom tool used in the flexographic industry to help match and monitor spot colors on press using spectral information. In addition to being used in the flexo industry, this innovative software is also a great educational tool to use in University press labs in order to teach the basic principles of flexography. California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo, California and Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina both utilize the SpotOn! Flexo software to teach color management and process control.
Natalee Consulo, Cal Poly alumna, shares her thoughts that “SpotOn! Flexo is a great tool for the Graphic Communication department at Cal Poly because it allows students to understand the theory behind flexo.” For Consulo, “it was not easy to understand the theory behind flexo until [she was able to] start really working with the software and the press” together. For example, the software leads students, like Consulo, to comprehend “the difference an anilox roll can make to the density of your printing.”
Cal Poly utilized SpotOn! Flexo for their involvement with the Phoenix Challenge (PC) competition this past year [http://phoenixchallenge.org/college-program/]. Consulo was the team leader and was happy to share information about their project and their use of SpotOn! Flexo. The PC prompt this year was to work with a local company to help them rebrand, repackage, and promote their products; Cal Poly chose to work with a local winery, Saarloos & Sons in Los Olivos, California. Cal Poly’s involvement with PC and working with a real-world customer was a unique opportunity for the students to utilize SpotOn! Flexo to help them “pay attention to densities and color during the final print runs…to keep color within reasonable ?Es because … this was very important to the quality of our product for our customer.” Consulo mentioned that they “ran some test runs to find what parameters [they] wanted to run with and then used those to compare color during [their] actual printing to make sure [they] stayed on track”. All of this was made possible and accessible to them through SpotOn! Flexo. Consulo also stated “the software was easy and quick to use.” With the use of SpotOn! Flexo, Consulo and her team were able to match and monitor their spot colors by “taking measurements during the [press] run.” When printing the Rose wine label portion of their project with Color Resolutions Hydro Metallic 872C Gold ink on Fasson pressure sensitive 2 mil clear BOPP substrate, they were able to monitor the density and achieve an average ?E of 1.0. Cal Poly was elated to take home the title of Phoenix Challenge 2014 Overall Champions.
In addition to being used at Cal Poly, SpotOn! Flexo is also used for educational purposes at Clemson University. Brad Gasque, Research Associate at Clemson University’s Sonoco Institute of Packaging Design & Graphics, is “a firm believer in the use of the software press-side.” At Clemson, students and faculty alike were recently involved in printing the October issue of FLEXO magazine while using SpotOn! Flexo at press to ensure color accuracy and consistency [http://flexography.org/flexo-magazine/].
In order to adequately teach color management and process control at Clemson, “it is always important that we have the best tools out there,” explains Gasque. “We needed a color management tool that tells the user the necessary press adjustments needed to hit a color standard/reference” and SpotOn! Flexo was able to provide Clemson with this. “We try to teach that the main control we have on press, when it comes to color, is density. A pressmen is not an ink specialist, so they should not be adjusting ink formulation on press. When ink formulation goes press side, this increases variability due to the difficulty of reproducing the change to the ink.” It is important that SpotOn! Flexo is able to provide students with these concepts in an accessible manner.
Gasque continued to describe that he appreciates the software because it “does the hard work for you. You do not have to be a color specialist to understand what the software is telling you regarding color and the changes in density that affect the color difference. I like that the changes the software recommends is in density, which is what can easily be changed on press. There are no hue knobs or a/b dials on the press to change color, but we can change the ink film thickness, which changes density.” Additionally, Gasque has seen measurable time saving benefits by the simple implementation of the SpotOn! Flexo software into Clemson’s press lab. Gasque notes that the software “saves tons of time” that is typically wasted “trying to change density of a ink to match a standard, when the ink is just formulated wrong.”
For more information or to download a free 30-day trial, visit www.spotonflexo.com.