CLOUD COMPUTING Sun Chemical transfers expertise and licensing
of the SmartColour™ project in the new X-Rite/Pantone PantoneLIVE™system, which provides access via web to the Pantone catalogues and the color data of each hue. The advantage? A perfect reproduction of the brand color, regardless of the printing technology
or substrate used.
Designed to handle the colors through a centralized database, accessible worldwide, the Sun Chemical SmartColour patented technology (which in the past has involved EskoArtwork and GMG Color) is at the basis of PantoneLIVE, the innovative and user friendly solution that interfaces on line with support tools and a stringent technical consultancy service.
With PantoneLIVE, color management is more effective along the entire packaging workflow: the brand colors are digitally defined and faithfully produced each time.
It doesn’t matter if the brand color is specified in London, the designer is in Los Angeles, prepress is in Munich, and the printer is in Milan. Because a brand’s color lives in the cloud: everyone can access it, all from the click of a mouse. The results are reliable and trustworthy in all phases of the process, in a short time and without margins of error, hence without waste or reworking.
But aboveall – and this is a crucial aspect – the inks formulated and
supplied by Sun chemical are all tested on different types of substrate and regards the dedicated application (water or solvent based). In this way color reproduction reserves no surprises, never mind the print technology used (flexo, gravure, offset) or substrate (flexible packaging, corrugated cardboard or recycled paper).
A world of hues, online
With PantoneLIVE, brand owners can choose the brand color and relative substrates. Tapping into the digital library (developed in partnership with Sun Chemical, Pantone’s preferred partner), the PantoneLIVE team works to identify accurate color specifications of the brand color in terms of substrates, print processes, inks, and application methods available and, defining precise spectral definitions for each color, essentially the color’s digital DNA is defined.
Lastly, the data is securely stored in a cloud-based ecosystem organized by brands, products, or campaigns.
Thanks to this preliminary work, via the PantoneLIVE portal, brand managers can select the digitized palettes and associated substrates, and then administer who in the supply chain (designer, preprint operator or other) can access the color palette of the brand in question to be able to carry out their set tasks.
There are many tools available to operators on the PantoneLIVE cloud, to be used with the same standard color: Adobe® Illustrator® and PantoneLIVE Color Book & Viewer for design and prepress, but also IFS for Color iQC formulation for quality control.
