Expert Center:

HP Latex Certification

Certify your material to generate new opportunities and higher sales

Finding the optimal print settings is a tedious process that can involve trial and error, resulting in unnecessary costs. ColorBase has therefore teamed up with HP and developed a certification program for the HP Latex Series. This program will ensure that your material is printed with the perfect settings to provide the best quality and gets the attention it deserves. Moreover, the program creates unbiased evidence your material performs according to the highest standards.

Eliminate trial and error for your customers

Finding the correct settings for printer materials is not only time consuming, difficult and expensive, it also decreases your customers' productivity and the overall solution you are able to provide to them. The HP Latex Certification truly makes your material 'plug-and-print'.

Exponentially increase your material's exposure

HP provides a powerful marketing channel to expose your products to your customers. Each HP Latex certification is part of an advanced cloud software solution that will list your certified products onto the front panel of their printers, HP PrintOS, and the HP Media Solutions Locator, which is visited by tens of thousands of HP customers around the world.

Simplify support and complaint handling

Support and complaint handling is much easier with a clear understanding of the capacity of your material. Certifications instantly boost the confidence of your sales teams and distribution channel, as they guarantee quality, reliability, and predictable results.

$HP Latex dashboard-07$

Gauge your materials' performance relative to the competition

ColorBase Insights is an important new tool that leverages the testing that our Expert Center performs as part of the HP Latex Certificaiton process. ColorBase Insights allows you to compare the performance of your certified materials to the average score of the materials they compete against in the market.

HP Latex Certifications come in two different flavors, depending on your material

Roll to Roll

Rigid

$HP-Latex-Media-1$

For materials such as textiles, wall covering, adhesive foils, banners - anything that comes on a roll.

Learn more

8feff515-202d-4a03-b418-547db286aa38-e1568381025322

For materials such as such as foam boards, solid plastics, ACP , PVC foam - anything that is rigid.

Learn more

Roll to Roll Materials Certifications

Applicable Printer Series

HP Latex 300 Series

HP Latex 500 Series

HP Latex 630 Series

HP Latex 700/800 Series

HP Latex 1500 Series

HP Latex 3000 Series

HP Latex R-Series

The Certification Process

We have developed a convenient way of testing print materials after printing with HP Latex inks, while collecting all necessary printing parameters. The HP Latex Certification program puts the material specifications and optimal setting for your materials straight into thousands of printers and into the HP Media Solutions Locator website.

1. Optical print quality check for coalescence, deformation, grain, banding, etc.

We test each materials for obvious visual defects by printing carefully designed test files, designed to expose weaknesses in coating or surface materials. We are checking for issues like: banding, deformation, bleeding, coalescence, and grain. By adjusting the printer settings and finding the right parameters within the bandwidths specified for the respective material, we will try to solve the visual defects.

2. Minimum color gamut required for certification

Each material category has predefined color gamut requirements. In other words: we expect a certain color range and quality for each material category. By creating an ICC profile and measuring the gamut volume of these profiles, we are able to determine whether the material capabilities fall within the required bandwidth.

3. Ink migration

HP Latex printers support the printing of materials with an open structure with the help of the Ink-Collector-Kit. We designed a test in order to find out whether a material requires the installation of this kit and to ensure the material does not transfer inks after it has been transported.

4. Shrinkage

Latex ink requires curing, which has the potential to cause material to dimensionally shrink during the printing process. By printing specially designed test files and measuring the physical print after it has been fully cured, we make sure your material falls within the tolerances set by HP.

5. Wrinkles

Transporting materials through an inkjet printer must be precise and flawless. Having too much pressure, not enough or too much vacuum power, or too much heat might cause wrinkling of the material during the printing process. By adjusting the printer parameters, we make sure that wrinkling is entirely eliminated, ensuring perfect image quality without any hassle for the printer operator.

6. Washability

Transfer materials can be used in combination with HP Latex inks. This test is designed to test whether the transferred image will hold during an ISO standardized washing test; ensuring that those colorful t-shirts will remain as colorful as they were designed and printed.

7. Water fastness

HP Latex inks are waterfast, under the right conditions and with the right material. This test is a basic water fastness test that ensures the material is capable of withstanding and handling water, within the expectations of HP and Color Concepts.

8. Ink cracking under tension

Printing on super flexible materials can be a challenge, especially when it comes to stretching and bending the material for its final application. HP Latex ink are designed for great flexibility. This test determines if a material in a particular category is able to handle the grade of flexibility you might expect from it. This test is done by stretching the material and detecting if any ink cracking occurs.

9. Ink adhesion

Ink adhesion is a crucial part of any printing process. HP Latex inks have great adhesion properties on compatible materials. This procedure uses industry standard tools to perform the required testing to make sure the materials are compatible with the HP Latex inks and provide the adhesion required for the application the material is designed for.

10. Cross cut ink peel-off

What happens to the rest of the image after a print gets damaged by scratching or cutting? Of course we all hope prints stay safe and live forever. However, reality is different sometimes. This test simulates what happens to the image, after a part of a print gets damaged.

11. Wet / dry rub

Can I touch the material after printing? Does this material require lamination after printing? Just some questions every print shop wants answered. For this test we are using high-end lab equipment to simulate dry and wet rubbing as it might occur in daily life.

12. Scratchability

Every print shop and print material expert knows the test: you take a print, you have your thumb and you scratch. Since everyone is scratching different, we designed a reproducible test that simulates the average force of a reasonable amount of scratching that every printed material should survive.

13. Folding / creasing

Finished printed material generally requires transportation to reach its final home. During this move, some materials could be folded to ease transportation and to save on costs, or even for the intended application. This test simulates what a material has to endure while being folded, stuffed in an envelope, and shipped.

Rigid Materials Certification

Applicable Printer Series

HP Latex R-Series

The Certification Process

We have developed a convenient way of testing print media after printing with HP Latex inks, while collecting all necessary printing parameters. The HP Latex Certification program puts the material specifications and optimal setting for your media straight into thousands of printers and into the HP Media Solutions Locator website.

1. Optical print quality check for coalescence, deformation, grain, banding, etc.

We test each media for obvious visual defects by printing carefully designed test files, designed to expose weaknesses in coating or surface materials. We are checking for issues like: banding, deformation, bleeding, coalescence, and grain. By adjusting the printer settings and finding the right parameters within the bandwidths specified for the respective media, we will try to solve the visual defects.

2. Minimum color gamut required for certification

3. Shrinkage

Latex ink requires curing, which has the potential to cause media to dimensionally shrink during the printing process. By printing specially designed test files and measuring the physical print after it has been fully cured, we make sure your material falls within the tolerances set by HP.

4. Water fastness

5. Ink cracking under tension

6. Ink adhesion

7. Wet / dry rub

8. Scratchability

Every print shop and print media expert knows the test: you take a print, you have your thumb and you scratch. Since everyone is scratching different, we designed a reproducible test that simulates the average force of a reasonable amount of scratching that every printed material should survive.

9. Stackability

This test will evaluate if your material can be safely stored in piles. We will be checking if there is any ink transfer from your material with the standards set by HP.

Apply for your HP Latex Cerification today

Fill out our brief Expert Center Job Request form, and we will contact you with further information as soon as possible.

Request an HP Latex Certification