Page 26 - PWM2025_APRIL EBOOK

TECHNOLOGY REPORT

When CMYK workflow

hampers more than helps

ver since digital workflows started to hit the
ard CMYK litho.
industry in the early 1990s, the default has been
End-to-end CMYK E dry or liquid toners) can exceed the colour range of stand-
to work in CMYK colours for linework at the
The result is often referred to as ‘extended colour
working is fine and design stage, and to convert digital photographs gamut’ (ECG), though the term also applies to techniques
dandy for litho print- and scans from their original red, green, blue of using five or six process colours, even in litho or flexo,
ing (or flexo) where (RGB) channels to CMYK as early as possible to exceed CMYK gamuts.
But all these digital devices and ECG techniques are
there are interna- too, at the PDF creation stage before delivery to the print- different from each other, with no standardisation or
ing house.
tional standards for The argument is that this provides consistency and pre- interchangeability, so you have to do a lot of profiling if
ink colours, and any dictability from design to press, and incidentally avoids you want them to be predictable and to match each oth-
ink runs on any press. some of the designers’ complaints of “why does this col- er’s results.
It gets more compli- our look so much duller in print than on my screen?” As we explore elsewhere in this issue, (see Star
cated with newer dig- The downside is that it obliges designers to understand Product, page 88)Konica Minolta has been selling very
ital presses. colour profiles when they’d rather be polishing their crea- pure CMYK toners with very wide gamuts that it calls
tivity and their awards entries; less obviously it short-cir- ‘high-chroma’ for years through five generations of its
cuits some of the really high colour quality potential entry-mid level HC digital presses.
Words by available from modern digital printing systems. These sell to users who want to offer eye-scorching col-
Simon Eccles End-to-end CMYK working is fine and dandy for litho our for photobooks and the like, but don’t want to pay a
printing (or flexo) where there are international stand- fortune for the privilege.
ards for ink colours, and any ink runs on any press. It gets Other digital printer manufacturers sell on the same
more complicated with newer digital presses, because idea. Fujifilm has long promoted the extended gamut
most current inkjets or electrophotography presses (ie available from its CMYK Jet Press B2 presses, while HP

26 PrintWeek MENA April 2025 www.printweekmena.com