Finch Paper’s FIT Color Management & Workflow Services team recently spent three days at Ricoh’s Solutions Center in Boulder, CO assisting their digital output solutions team in achieving consistent, G7 Color on their flagship InfoPrint aqueous continuous form inkjet platforms, the InfoPrint 5000 family.

FIT’s innovative, collaborative work with Original Equipment Manufacturers like Ricoh helps to ensure our print customers’ success as they adapt to new printing technologies.

Integrating G7 gray balance into Ricoh’s aqueous inkjet workflow allows for consistent color output, from machine-to-machine and job-to-job, as well as ensuring color balance on Finch’s various substrates.

Finch Digital Application Manager Mary Schilling, who leads the FIT color team, said “The Ricoh team has designed a user-friendly machine workflow which allows the creation of custom color profiling for its InfoPrint 5000 platforms.”

“Ricoh strives to be a leader in innovation across the globe, similarly to the goals of Finch’s FIT Color Management and Workflow Services division. Together, we have been able to further enhance the color management capabilities of our InfoPrint 5000 family, adding more innovation and versatility to the platforms,” said Nick Fiore, Ricoh Senior Managing Consultant, Continuous Forms Production Solutions. “From commercial to transactional printing companies, high color quality and proven color management are key factors in determining a print partner. We’ve taken this latest step of G7 certification to help ensure our customers receive quality and reliability they seek in a production print platform.”

Since its introduction in 2007, Ricoh’s InfoPrint 5000 has been a leader in driving the acceptance of inkjet technology by providing transactional and commercial printing companies with high quality, high reliability, high speed solutions with ease-of-use and productivity features including an industry-unique suite of ink management tools. Ricoh continues to enhance this market-leading family, protecting customers’ investments and helping them to expand their capabilities and offerings. Finch is delighted to partner with Ricoh to offer a substrate solution that maximizes the true color output that can be achieved on InfoPrint presses.

What is G7?

G7 is a calibration and printing methodology created by the IDEAlliance in an effort to standardize the color output for printing companies. Because of fluctuations in humidity, temperature, ink batches – and a host of other variables – a given print job run on the same press on different days could have noticeable color variations.

By employing G7 calibration, these variations are minimized to the point where they are virtually undetectable. G7 is currently being applied to many types of printing, including commercial and publication printing, newsprint, and even flexography.

What is FIT?

FIT Color Management and Workflow Services, denoting Fluid + Ink + Toner, leverages Finch Paper’s technical knowledge surrounding color-managed workflows and ICC color profiles across printing platforms. “Fluid” refers to inkjet presses using aqueous inks, “Ink” refers to traditional offset presses, and “Toner” refers to digital production printing presses. The ultimate challenge is to have consistent, predictable color results across all three platforms.

Through on-site consultations, the technical experts at Finch look at the entire process — from design to finishing — adjusting color settings and workflow to hit the color mark from run to run and machine to machine while lowering the total cost of print. From basic education, to assistance with G7 Certification and documentation for IDEAlliance, on-site print analysis, one-on-one training, and custom print optimization, Finch builds a workflow solution that’s a perfect “fit” for your printing company.

Learn more at www.finchpaper.com/fit.