Peter Martin of Lotsa Printing, Cairns, Port Douglas and Townsville, has been running ISO colour certified by Colour Graphic Services since August 2014 and has experienced a profound and positive effect on his business.
“It all started with a colour health check – the kind that David Crowther is offering for free at PrintEx,” says Martin. “This is one thing I strongly recommend printers have a look at!”
He goes on to explain why: “Last year we had some minor colour issues that baffled us, so I did some research and we ended up with Colour Graphic
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| Peter Martin of Lotsa Printing |
Services and David Crowther. He suggested we print his special colour strip on a couple of jobs and send down to him so he could access the quality.”
It wasn’t all plain sailing as Martin notes: “The reports he sent back indicated a fail on all of them to the ISO colour standards, naturally I was somewhat pissed off! But, being fanatical about good colour, I decided to press ahead.”
“The long story in short form is that we went through the ISO process in August 2014, achieved certification and since then we have:
• Lowered ink costs by about 15%.
• Produce consistent colour.
• Had a competitor even commented to another supplier that our colour was bullet-proof since “they did the ISO.”
• We can see when the press or CTP is starting to wander and can take pro-active steps to correct it (until ISO, it would wander right off before we started getting complaints).
• Achieved ISO colour on the iGen digital and both HP roll fed and flatbed wide format machines, so that now we print on anything and we have excellent consistency of colour across all printers / media.
• We now print with great confidence; if a client queries the colour, we advise that we are certified to ISO 12647 and they accept that it is correct (even other printers now realise that it must be the file!)
• Found issues with the CTP that has now changed the way Agfa does service on their CTP units nationally.”
Peter Martin continues: “We all believe as printers that our colour is top notch; yes we all notice it does wander at times but overall we are happy with it. That is just what we thought also.
“When we first went to David for assistance I was sceptical. He was happy to address the current issue but suggested going the full hog and getting ISO certification – I thought why not get this, to help with winning government work.
After a hard 4 days on site with David and fingerprinting both the Ryobi 920 5 colour and the Xerox iGen4, we passed the ISO certification.”
“ Both staff and clients immediately saw a clear improvement in our output, yes it was good before but now it was exceptional, skin tones, gradients, pictures and everything had that clarity and real life colour. This is the best thing we have done in the last 5 years,” he enthuses.
“We no longer need to rely on press density settings or visual inspection to know if colour is correct – a quick 60 second scan and report tells us precisely where we are on colour accuracy, and staff can now do it every day and not rely on my assessments!”
“I would say to all offset and digital printers attending PrintEx - this opportunity is too good to pass on – get onto David and he can send a simple ISO colour strip or the full blown test sheet to you for printing and bring along to the show and get a real independent assessment of your colour – be prepared to be advised that you are not at ISO standard! Then if you are serious about your colour you can take the next step to certification and worry free printing!
“If anyone doesn’t believe me or would just like to chat about our experience, ring me on 0439 884 303. Now my colour is spot-on, I have more time!”
Colour Graphic Services
www.colourgraphicservices.com
Lotsa Printing
