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CHROMiX ColorNews Issue #74 - Avoid compliance hell with PRX/PQX

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  CHROMiX ColorNews
   Issue #74 - October 6th, 2022

This Month's Contents

  1. CHROMiX News
  2. Latest blog entries in ColoRants (and Raves)
  3. Shows and Events
  4. Color Industry News
  5. Forum Topics, Random Bits, etc.
  6. Article - Avoid compliance hell with PRX/PQX
  7. CHROMiX Open Box items for sale
  8. ColorNews Admin (feedback, subscriptions, etc.)

CHROMiX Blog
For the very freshest color updates, check out our blog Colorants (and raves).

Respond & Discuss
Don't forget, you can discuss this month's article and anything else from this newsletter in ColorForums.com

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CHROMiX News What the heck have we been up to?

Announcements Galore / PU Booth

We've been toiling away and put the pandemic lockdown to very good use including, at long last, this new issue of ColorNews.

We're very excited to announce that CHROMiX has a booth at Printing United in Las Vegas this year (two weeks from now, Oct 19-21, 2022). It's booth N1071, in the North hall, near the Kodak booth.

Plus, we will be demonstrating how well our software works with two great measuring instruments: Konica Minolta Myiro-9 (formerly FD-9) and the Barbieri LFPqb Textile edition

Stop by or make an appointment! Come by our fully staffed booth anytime Wednesday to Friday. Or if you prefer to make an appointment, reach out to Rick Hatmaker at hatmaker(at)chromix.com or call at 206-985-6837 ext 1.

Register and Get your free Expo pass compliments of CHROMiX. Use CODE 76071

The following announcements all apply to what you'll see in the booth

Maxwell 22 - Monitoring color doesn't have to be difficult or expensive

Maxwell's web interface has been completely rebuilt and modernized and we're launching it at Printing United. We've had customers beta testing for over a year under super-secret NDA and now it's available immediately after the show.

The completely rebuilt web interface provides:

  • Interactive graphing
  • Ad-hock comparisons
  • Dynamic dashboards
  • Peer comparisons
  • Live data updates for all views
  • Jobs AND track reporting available for both workflow types
  • Integrated brand color reporting across all services
  • Integrated help and walk-throughs
  • PQX/PRX support for integration with other tools and workflows (by year end)
  • Direct integration with Curve4 and ColorThink4
Live demonstrations ongoing in our booth. The interactivity and clean design should really be seen.

We're hosting a webinar Nov 3, 2022 at 11:00am Pacific Time for those who missed the show or want more details. Sign up here
If you're interest in Curve4 + Maxwell integration, see the Curve4 + Maxwell webinar 2 days earlier

ColorThink 4 - Announced and Shown

We're very excited to show the next big release of ColorThink. It's entering into beta testing after the show (really) and is expected to ship in the 1st quarter of next year (also, really). Many of the technologies we've developed for Curve and Maxwell have found their way into ColorThink and we know you're going to love them.

This long-anticipated update is a huge upgrade from version 3 and the features we're showing includes:

  • Many additions and improvements to the Grapher
    • New viewing spaces and modes
    • Image flow (must see)
    • Graph views
    • Gamut comparison subtraction
    • N-channel graphing improvements (huge!)
    • dE blobs
  • New Color Assets handler
  • Integrated instrument support
  • Color Worksheet
    • Color patch tuning
    • SCCA conversion
    • List joining and filtering
    • Gamut boundary selecting
  • Completely modernized interface
Live demonstrations ongoing in our booth.

Curve 4 users get a big upgrade

Curve4 can now automatically upload Verifications and Calibrations into Maxwell and licensed Curve4 users gain Maxwell's trending, tracking and notification capabilities for free

In other words:

  • create a free account
  • set two or three things in Curve4
You now have full trending and tracking happening automatically. Curve4's behavior doesn't change a bit, and you get a bunch of new cloud-connected capabilities for free.

Wha?
  • A great way to keep track of G7 calibration status of a fleet of presses
  • An easy way to offer Verification users a simple way to track their progress and share it with visiting technicians after they leave
  • Available to any Curve4 user - licensed users simply sign up for free account
  • Very simple to configure in Curve4
  • Zero config required in Maxwell (other than account setup and specifying a device)
  • G7 Experts can now easily monitor customers using Curve4 Verify
  • Maxwell functions included: Tracking, trendlines, dashboard, notifications, all uploads directly from Curve4
Live demonstrations available in our booth.

We're hosting a webinar Nov 1, 2022 at 11:00am Pacific Time for those who missed the show or want more details. Sign up here
This will be a basic-level Maxwell overview. If you want more detail, see the Maxwell webinar 2 days later

3D Holographic LED display giveaway at our booth

You might be thinking "Is that a real 3D LCD display?" Yes, it is.

You might be asking "Are they giving one of those away?" Yes, we are.

ColorThink4 will export a special 3D file that the Looking Glass Portrait display can show in full, glorious 3D splendor.

To mark this event we're giving away one of these displays to some lucky soul who drops by our booth and enters to win. We'll be showing ColorThink's graphs on this display in our booth, so come check it out.

CHROMiX Wins 2022 Barbieri Excellence Award

CHROMiX has been selected by Barbieri for it's Excellence Award!

"CHROMiX develops software for the digital printing market and spectral color data is a cornerstone for its software evaluations. We found there there is a deep understanding in how to connect and integrate spectral data and color measurement technology which allows customers to gather the highest accuracy."

The feeling is mutual. We love Barbieri devices and work hard to incorporate effective and seamless compatibility with our software.

Here is a link to Barbieri's Hall of Excellence for more depth in details of this award

CHROMiX LinkedIn page

Check out the latest with our LinkedIn page. We consistently update this with fun and interesting items.

CHROMiX Website Update.... soon

Finally, you will soon notice a complete makeover of our website. This new website has all of the essential ingredients you need, but will have a more modern interface that is easier to navigate, is more logical and is more appealing. Hope you like it!

And from all of us at CHROMiX, thank you for reading! Again!

 

CHROMiX Blog Here are some of the recent posts to our blog: Colorants (and raves)

  • CHROMiX Blog - A cool new car that changes color, details of the Barbieri Excellence Award for Business Performance, supply chain issues, and more.

Shows and Events Color-relevant gatherings to plan for

October 19th- 21st, 2022 - Printing United Expo 2022, Las Vegas Convention Center, October 19th to 21st. This is the largest event in the world bringing the entire printing industry under one roof. It is dynamic and comprehensive.

CHROMiX will be there in booth N1071.

Register and Get your free Expo pass compliments of CHROMiX. Use CODE 76071.

January 2023 - Color Conference... The beloved Color Conference is no longer a stand-alone event. PUA know how much we value it and are considering future options for the conference to take, including having it adjoin other events. Steve Upton is on the Advisory Council for the conference and we'll let you as soon as we know more about how and where it appears next.

Events Calendar: For all current and future events, bookmark this calendar.

Color Industry News What's going on in the world of color

ColorLogic CoPrA 9 released Sept. 28

ColorLogic Introduces the new CoPrA version 9 on September 28th, 2022. CoPrA 9 brings overall new capabilities and enhancements to the features used every day.
Major features include:


  • Redesigned Update Profile Tool
  • Calculate Multicolor Profile Variants
  • Enhanced Profile Manager with new 3D gamut view option, additional 3D gamut scaling for Lab and new DeviceLink profile gamut view
  • Improved rendering Absolute Compression
  • New Calculation Mode in the Linearization tool minimizes channels by combining light and full ink channels
  • Improved Image Conversion with better soft proof and InkSave information
  • Profile Calculation Speed Boost due to native M1/M2 chip support
  • Many more improvements

Epson's new spectrophotometer

Epson Introduces the new SD-10 spectrophotometer Color Measuring Device.

Callas software releases pdfToolbox 14

Callas released a major update to its flagship pdfToolbox product line. This update adds support for faster processing of personalized documents (VDP), several improvements to the JavaScript and Process Plan engines in pdfToolbox to make advanced automation faster and more capable, and an easier custom report engine.

Forum Topics and other bits  Popular topics from ColorForums.com and other things we've found along the way.

G7 Basics Video:   CHROMiX created a new video in the Curve4 section. This is a simple, G7 basics video intended for people who have never used Curve software before, are thinking about G7, and just want a simple primer on how to do it.




Avoid compliance hell with PRX/PQX by Steve Upton

Color verification and compliance tools are gaining in popularity and print buyers are realizing their value. What's not to like? Buyers can put their newly-learned color and G7 ideas to work, ensuring their print procurement is consistent and pleasing to the eye.

Some buyers are taking their vendor's advice and requiring printers to use specific software tools or cloud services. This creates an untenable situation where printers have to buy, learn and use multiple tools in order to gain the customers' work they need. A vendor representative recently confided "We have printers who are required by customers to buy and use 4 or 5 different color compliance products in order to print their work. It's insane and unnecessary."

Don't torture your print providers by requiring proprietary tools' measurements for compliance testing.

What many don't realize is that color verification math is essentially open-source. The formulas, units, and tolerances are available to everyone and most tools use the same foundational tech. How they differ is in their approach to the problem, their workflows, and their levels of automation and reporting. (have I mentioned recently how awesome Maxwell and Curve are at such things?)

This means that the foundations exist for the many verification tools to share data easily. Thankfully, Idealliance and ISO have created standard file formats that allow this very exchange to occur: PRX and PQX. PRX (Print Requirement eXchange) and PQX (Print Quality eXchange) are standard XML file formats created by Idealliance to allow for the clear exchange of print requirements and the resulting print quality measurements.

PRX/PQX allows printers and buyers to choose the best tool for their needs

Brands and print buyers encode their requirements into print requirements files (PRX) and make these files available to job bidders and print providers. PRX files can handle color aim measurements, spot color values, preferred color metrics and tolerances. They also handle defect allowances and bar code verification requirements. Print providers, in turn, import the PRX files into their verification tools so they can confirm their output adheres to the buyer's needs. It allows for buyers to use software best for their perspective and for printers to do the same. One size does not fit all and it doesn't have to.

The measurements, barcode verifications and defect tracking are then exported into print quality files (PQX) and shared back to the buyers and brands. These files are imported into the buyers' tools and the circle is complete.

Like ICC profiles opened up the proprietary conversion systems of the 1980s and 90s, PQX/PRX open up color verification systems. The last 25 years of innovation and quality improvement have proven that the open exchange of color conversion and proofing tables makes workflows much more flexible and allows stakeholders at each point of the workflow to choose the tools that are best for them. Photo, design and prepress software support ICC profiles for the creation end of the workflow. Proofing, workflow and RIP software support the output end. ICC profiles tie it all together.

PRX/PQX allows stakeholders at each point of the print supply chain to be supported with the tools best for their needs and their customers' needs. Conformance checking is not supposed to be handcuffs on printers, but that's how it's evolving when print buyers specify proprietary systems which must be used to report color compliance measurements and results.

Dianne Kennedy, Editor of ISO 20616 (the PRX/PQX standard) from PQX Consulting said "The ISO standard, ISO 20616, that codifies the standardized exchange of print compliance data has been published, however adoption of PRX/PQX is far from assured. As with the adoption of G7, pressure from print buyers holds the key to widespread implementation and adoption."

Brands and print buyers: Choose software that works from your perspective and require it to support PRX/PQX exchange. Avoid requiring print providers to use specific tools that are often not appropriate for their situation and make their lives more difficult. The extra expense is passed back to you anyway, one way or another.

Printers: Choose software that works best for your needs - process control, quality assurance, and compliance verification and require it to support PRX/PQX exchange files. When buyers require proprietary systems be used, alert them to industry tools like PRX/PQX and urge their use in specifying their requirements. Send them a copy of this article if you think it will help. Direct them to Idealliance, an organization that is explicitly tasked with removing workflow barriers across the entire supply chain.

Visit our booth N1071 @ Printing United in October to get more information about how PQX/PRX makes the printer's and the print buyers' lives easier. We've announced this week our Maxwell 2022 upgrade which soon supports the import and export of both PQX and PRX files, easing the exchange of compliance information and the pressure on printers to use multiple products to get customer work.

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A PDF of this article is available at chromix.com for you to share with stakeholders at any point in the supply chain. Spread the word and this contentious situation will be smoothed out over time

   To read this article with images in ColorWiki, click here

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