Do you have an Out-Of-Production Densitometer? See our Spring 2019 Trade-In Offer

Today’s printers demand more from their densitometers. They know that relying on out-of-production – legacy devices is risky business. That’s why operators worldwide are upgrading to Techkon’s SpectroDens. It’s the fastest and easiest way to accurately control color and density in the pressroom – with full support for ISO and G7® methodologies – and it’s the most ergonomic device on the market. For the 2019 spring season, we’re offering a great trade-in opportunity. From now…

See The New Version of the SpectroVision in Action at Graphics Canada!

The feedback on the newest version of the SpectroVision has been phenomenal so far, so we are thrilled to be showcasing it at Graphics Canada 2019.  The show details are as follows: Graphics Canada April 11-13th, 2019 International Centre Toronto, Ontario Booth#: 5500-E If you haven’t had a chance to read about the SpectroVision, it operates at press speeds up to 1,000ft/minute, and combines spectral based color measurement, web viewing, and ISO/ANSI style bar code…

Why I Joined Techkon USA

By: Richard Black, Midwest Sales Manager I have been involved in the Print Industry for 30+ years mainly in the area of color reproduction. In the last 10 years, there has been a tremendous push within the print industry to improve color process control.  This is being driven by print buyers and brand owners requiring consistent print quality and, in many cases, documented proof of the color reproduction.  ‘Good enough color’ just won’t cut it…

2018 Cyber Week Special

PERFECT COLOR HAS NEVER BEEN MORE AFFORDABLE Techkon products help printers measure, manage, and communicate perfect color, and recognize significant savings in labor costs, ink, and paper. Our instrumentation, software and integrated solutions enable the finest quality print, ensure accuracy and repeatability, and deliver the highest ROI. To celebrate cyber week, we are offering up to 20% off select Techkon products. Contact us today to learn about and take advantage of this limited time offer*. Use offer code:…

Why Techkon Products are the Color Measurement Tools of Choice

Here’s why Techkon products are the color measurement tools of choice for printers around the world: Quality Assurance: Our handheld and scanning color measurement devices can immediately show pass/fail status relative to in-house and customer requirements. ChromaQA, our sophisticated, cloud-based, quality assurance solution, lets printers instantly monitor the color quality of jobs on press. Collectively, Techkon products shorten make-ready cycles, reduce the number of re-makes, increase color accuracy & consistency, and ultimately allow our customers…

Field tests with print samples using XRGA and Techkon instruments

A previous blog post (“Consistent Color Measurement”) discussed instrument settings and procedures to ensure consistent color measurement throughout the supply chain. Once these are all in place, how well will instruments agree? All spectrophotometer manufacturers quote “repeatability” as one of their specs. This is the degree to which an instrument agrees with itself when making measurements of the same spot on the same sample, over a short period of time. Instrument repeatability is a small…

Section 179 – Getting a Tax Write off for Entire Purchase Cost

When your business buys certain items of equipment, it typically gets to write them off a little at a time through depreciation. For a $50,000 machine, it may get to write off $10,000 a year for five years. The whole purpose behind the Section 179 stimulus is to motivate American businesses to invest in growth. For most small businesses, the entire cost can be written-off on the 2016 tax return (up to $500,000). Learn more…

8 Questions to Ask Before Purchasing Your Next Handheld Densitometer

The purchase of a handheld densitometer is a capital expenditure that requires due diligence and a proven path to ROI for most commercial and packaging printers today. Before making the final purchase decision, be sure to ask the following 8 questions: Is the densitometer equipped with functionality to scan color bars? The ability to scan color bars with a handheld densitometer should be a top consideration when evaluating your purchase decision.  This feature is essential…

3 Steps to Achieve Accurate Color Across Presses

Ensuring consistent and accurate color in a multi-press multi-facility environment presents a host of challenges that many printers struggle to deal with on a daily basis. Most of these challenges fall into the following four categories: Inability to Share Data If there is not a cohesive system and process in place to share customer specified color tolerances and values, it is virtually impossible to achieve accurate and consistent color across multiple presses and facilities. Without…

Dispelling the Myth of Hand Scanning Densitometers

Does the scanning speed of the spectrodensitometer affect the accuracy of its measurements? A highly inaccurate supposition of some handheld scanning spectrodensitometers for the print industry today is the notion that if you vary the speed with which you manually move the instrument than the accuracy of the measurements will be compromised. In reality, handheld scanning spectrodensitometers offer the exact same accuracy as the high-end automated scanning systems and are often times the perfect solution…

Do you have a unique color challenge?

Measuring, monitoring, and maintaining the strict color tolerances being demanded by brand owners is an increasingly complex component of your print production process. Issues unique to you and your customer base compound the challenge of maintaining reliable, continuous color quality. That’s why an out of the box system won’t fully satisfy your needs. The only way to solve your specific issues is with a customized solution designed specifically to address your needs. The dynamic state…

Expanded Color Gamut: Seminar and Open House

See Techkon equipment on display at the Expanded Color Gamut Seminar and Open House! June 18: Hilton Indian Lakes, Bloomingdale, IL Presenters: Mark Samworth, Esko & Catherine Haynes, All Printing Resources APR and Esko jointly present an informative industry seminar focused on the trending topic of Expanded Color Gamut (ECG), followed by an APR Open House. “Expanded gamut has increased from less than 1% to roughly 14% of industry printers in the last 5 years….

Stricter Tolerances and Expanded Gamut: Key Emerging Trends in Flexo Printing

Having just attended the Flexographic Technical Association conference in San Diego, it’s clear that two major trends are emerging as the Flexo industry evolves. Both present a challenge to printers and suppliers but the technology exists to help us successfully address both. Flexo Quality Control (FQC) – One of the most interesting sessions of the conference addressed the growing demand for higher quality in Flexo print production. Most flexo printers check the color accuracy at…

Full Vision Print Inspection System or Inline Spectrophotometer for your Web/Flexo Press? 3 Things to Consider

Competition in the print industry is fierce and profit margins are thin. As a result, companies have to be diligent when making capital equipment purchases. When it comes to equipment that helps maintain inline/continuous print quality for every print impression, costs can range from $30K for an inline spectrometer or densitometer to nearly $300K for a full vision print inspection system. Which one do you need? That depends. Here are three things to consider before…

A Short History of the SpectroDensitometer

Over the last 15 years, the trend has shifted from traditional CMYK densitometers to spectrophotometer based densitometers. This shift was mainly driven by more affordable, lower cost technology and the need to know more about the characteristic of the ink that is being printed. This has created a new class of products called Spectro-Densitometers. Spectro-Densitometers are catching the eyes of press operators everywhere. Historically, they’ve had to rely on their eyes to calibrate the press,…

Is it time to upgrade your densitometer?

In my travels helping companies achieve G7 Master Printer Certification I encounter lots of creative ways of managing color on press. Lots of folks have a densitometer at the press console to spot check sheets. While this has undoubtedly greatly improved the consistency of press color on each station over time it becomes obvious that some densitometers do not correlate to each other when measuring the same press sheet and ink zone. Which densitometer is…

The Good News, The Bad News, The Good News

Life can be a series of ups and downs, and instituting a process control system can follow the same zig-zag pattern, but with one important difference: With process control there are a lot more ups than downs. First the good news: having automated process control on press has never been as inexpensive and easy to implement as it is now. Clear standards and methodologies exist, proofing is better than ever, and true automated spectral scanning…

3 Industry Trends Every Printer Should Know About

All sorts of new trends are happening in the communications arena: variable data printing, QR codes, cross-media campaigns, internet marketing and more. There’s plenty of buzz, and the farther it all is from traditional printing, the more printers feel they need to know more about it. So is there anything new to talk about in traditional print? You bet there is! Some of the most powerful trends developing right now are all about putting ink…

5 Reasons for Color Management in Packaging

1.  Is your ink really the right color? How can you tell? Determine whether the color of the ink you are receiving from your supplier falls within an acceptable distance from the customer specified colors and tolerances; before the end of the press run. Follow these 3 simple steps: Have the ink supplier provide an ink draw-down on the actual press material you are going to print on along with the customer specified color values…