Fredrick, MD – FNP Print and Publishing recently went live with the latest release of Alwan Color's CMYK Eco Ink Optimizer as part of their on-going pursuit of quality control. In addition to a measurable reduction in ink costs they also benefited from shorter make-ready, faster drying times and outstanding color reproduction consistency. Their investment in the Eco Ink Optimizer paid for itself in under two months.

"The color quality and consistency was immediately noticeable and we are realizing a savings of 18%, which is very significant", states  Sixton Kadel, Production Systems Administrator, FNP Print and Publishing . "We now benefit from less ink on the sheet, less show-through, and tight adherence to color standards – an issue of growing importance to our advertisers and commercial customers."

PDF files come from a variety of sources and contain elements having different color spaces and separation options. As files are processed by the Alwan CMYK Eco solution they are set to industry ISO color standards and harmonized to the actual press conditions. This ensures color reproduction accuracy, strict compliance to industry color standards and the highest attainable level of ink optimization savings while enhancing print quality.

Alwan CMYK Optimizer allows a pre-press company or printer to check and correct automatically and dynamically the colors and ink weight characteristics of incoming files, before sending them for film or plate output.

CMYK Eco Ink Optimizer can be used with any four-color process (+ spots) press regardless of the output technology so is suitable for lithographic, flexography, gravure, digital, and screen printing alike. Unique to this ink optimization solution are built-in industry color standards profiles, automatic and dynamic dot gain compensation, TAC correction, optimal black generation for superior print quality and a ink reduction cost savings report generator.

The ability to automatically apply color standardization to files can also be incorporated in to the proofing process to ensure tighter color correlation between hard copy proofing and the press make-ready.

Mr. Kadel adds, "The Alwan Eco solution is also used to manage file color standardization of our wide format proofers and this provides tightly calibrated color match between the proofs and the final printed work.  It has helped to further streamline make-ready cut operating costs."