Color-Logic will release a new design tool enabling graphic designers and prepress personnel to prepare artwork files for the neon and fluorescent inks currently being introduced by several digital press and printer manufacturers at Printing United 2019, which takes place from 23-25 October 2019 in Dallas, Texas. The Touch7 Photo Neon plugin is a powerful design tool that enables brands, designers, and printers to utilize these neon colors in their images. Brands are already using spot neon and fluorescent inks in packaging and signage worldwide, but Touch7 Photo Neon is the only separation tool that adds these colors into images within seconds.
Discussing the new tool, Richard Ainge, Touch7 developer and chief technology officer at Color-Logic said, “Touch7 Photo Neon allows any designer or prepress operator to create neon/fluorescent separations with a few clicks of the mouse. The Touch7 Photo tool helps printers add extended gamut colors into images by printing the neon separation atop the CMYK ink set. By combining neon pink with CMYK, for example, printers can produce an entirely new set of oranges and reds for their brand clients, an effect previously unachievable using CMYK inks alone.”
Ainge added, “Touch7 Photo Neon works intelligently at the pixel level, automatically isolating and separating out only the cyan, magenta, and yellow components of the image. The final conversion adds as many as three additional neon or fluorescent spot colors to the original image format. For example, an RGB image that is converted using Touch7 Photo Neon will become an RGB image plus up to three neon or fluorescent spot colors. Touch7 Photo Neon does not require ICC profiles to extract the desired separations. The proprietary Touch7 Neon separation algorithms calculate the effect based on the original source pixels. Graphic designers unable to see the Touch7 Photo Neon tool at the Dallas show may download the software and test it free of charge at www.touch7.co.”
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
