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ColorBase Blog
DTF Printing: Did I trigger a time machine somewhere?
DTF printing has truly stormed the industry, revolutionizing the world of transfers. This shake-up, spearheaded by a surge of innovation from China, has sent Western manufacturers scrambling to keep up. In short, DTF is changing the game-not just in t-shirt transfers but in so many other applications as well.…
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Will AI Play A Role In Color Management In The Near Future?
As a color expert who’s been in the printing business for over 40 years, I often ponder this possibility. Could my job be taken over by AI? Probably not before I retire, but at the pace it’s advancing, maybe sooner than we think! While I don’t have the ability to predict the future, I can…
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DTF Printing – Understanding the basics of direct-to-film printing for textiles
Direct-to-film (DTF) printing is a process that involves printing a design onto film using pigment inks and then transferring the design onto a fabric using a heat press. It requires an inkjet digital printer with pigment-based inks, which include CMYK colors and typically a white ink that serves as the base for the design, especially…
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A New/Better Spot Color Matching System
There is so much talk these days about spot colors, namely the PANTONE libraries. This “matching system” has been the defacto used by many industries, specifically printing. Recently PANTONE made the decision to remove the libraries from Adobe Creative Cloud applications and charge loyal customers a fee to access them. This has left many scrambling…
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AI, Image Creation and Color – Quality Output or a Color Conundrum?
It would be difficult to find someone who hasn’t heard of artificial intelligence (AI) these days. And every day, more and more people are using AI. On the word side, it’s being used to write short stories or to spruce up resumes and cover letters. On the art side, it’s being used to edit photos…
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The Process Control Cycle: How To Maintain Consistent and Predictable Color Quality
One of the best ways to achieve consistent and predictable color quality on a printer is to calibrate it and create a custom ICC profile for it. But the work doesn’t stop there. To maintain consistent and predictable color quality, you need a verifiable color management strategy that centers around process control. When you choose…
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Brother and ColorBase are launching profiles for the Brother WF1-L640 – we are proud to collaborate!
Brother and ColorBase are collaborating on the WF1-L640 Launching Profiles Program, whereby ColorBase profiles a selection of premium print materials, enabling purchasers of Brother’s newest wide format printer to hit the ground running. We are creating 2 profiles for 48 different materials from prominent material manufacturers such…
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Rolling With It: How the Stock and Roll is Changing How We Work
The Challenge In recent months, the ColorBase Expert Center has been busier than ever. This time of year is always a crunch – as our material manufacturer clients get ready to launch their new products at trade shows like FESPA, ISA, and this year’s DRUPA, we are typically swamped from February till the end of…
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Announcing the Fujifilm Acuity Prime Hybrid Launching Materials Program – ColorBase is proud to play a part!
The Launching Materials Program – What Is It? Fujifilm and ColorBase are collaborating on the Fujifilm Acuity Prime Hybrid Launching Materials Program, whereby ColorBase profiles a selection of premium print materials, enabling purchasers of the Acuity Prime Hybrid to hit the ground running. We are creating four profiles per material: High Quality mode for ColorGate…
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Dissecting Delta E and the Mathematical Difference Between Colors
When discussing colors, we often don’t need to see two hues or color family types next to each other to understand that they are very different from each other. We generally understand that red and green are not the same color; nor are orange and violet. However, in color science and color management, we need…
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ColorBase Announces Participation in Color Quality Conference ’24
Capelle aan den IJssel, The Netherlands – 22 January, 2024 ColorBase is thrilled to announce its participation in the upcoming Color Quality Conference ’24 in Tampa, Florida. Our Product Manager Kai Chaplin will be representing ColorBase at the event, hosted and organized by ChromaChecker. The Color Quality Conference, known for its unique blend of hands-on…
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A Guide To Spectrophotometers for Measuring and Verifying Color
While the concept of color relates to our sense of sight, it usually isn’t perceived accurately with our eyes alone. To help us overcome the limitations of our naked eye, we rely on spectrophotometers for measuring color in the print industry. Why You Can’t Trust Your Eyes Alone To Perceive Color First, let’s discuss the…
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The Evolution of ColorBase Profile Search: A Pinnacle Award Winner
Brand owners’ expectations on color consistency have never been higher, while there are now thousands of different materials to print on and hundreds of different printers to use, all with dozens of different inksets and configurations. This means that, given the same specified brand color input, there are millions of different possible color outcomes depending…
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Re-board®: Making Sustainable Event and Exhibition Constructions
For those seeking environmentally friendly alternatives to conventional materials like MDF/plywood, foams, and plastics in event and exhibition constructions, Re-board® offers an ideal solution. The Make Haus Agency, along with Re-board® producer Next Printing, provides insights into sustainable design, production, installation, and recycling processes. Their collaborative efforts showcase the feasibility and effectiveness of…
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Why Printer Maintenance is Important in Color Management
It was mid-summer in the Midwest. My business partner and I were driving from our home state to an adjoining one. Our mission was to spend a couple of days profiling printers for a new client. As always, we had gathered some information before we accepted the job. We knew we were going to be…
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ColorBase, Under the Hood: The Data Model Upgrade Enabling a Smarter Printing Industry
Quiet Transformation Our industry’s most advanced database of material, printer, RIP and ICC profile data is undergoing a quiet transformation. While it’s true that code is never “done” – iterative progress is the rule, not the exception – ColorBase is undergoing an internal transformation that far exceeds the scope of routine day-to-day improvements. We’re on…
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Re-board®: The Environmentally Friendly Solution for Sustainable Constructions
Re-board Technology, developed by Swedish inventor Karl-Gustav Ericsson in the 1990s, revolutionized the concept of environmentally friendly materials. Concerned about the escalating environmental issues caused by excessive resource consumption, Ericsson designed Re-board® as an alternative to traditional honeycomb structures commonly used at the time. This patented paper-board marked a significant milestone in sustainable construction materials.…
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ColorBase’s Changing of the Guard: Teunis’s Journey and Juriaan’s Torch
ColorBase has been a small but important part of the large format community for 20 years – we don’t bring it up to brag, but because we want to emphasize the impact that ColorBase veteran Teunis Roos has had, not just on us but on our industry as a whole. We are extremely sad to…
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How To Create Named Spot Colors in Adobe (and Your RIP)
Before learning how to create named spot colors, it’s important to understand what they are and how they are used. Just a few weeks ago, my business partner Jim Raffel and I presented “How Important Is Brand Color?” at the ISA International Sign Expo in Las Vegas. Many print facilities are tasked with achieving accurate…
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Eye on Display – the New Name for Display News
This post contains sponsored content. When I first entered the wide format print industry as a young PR person back in the mid-90s, we were spoiled for choice for publications. There were no less than 7 (seven) monthly magazines focusing on sign-making and many more covering printing and graphics reproduction. Fast forward nearly 30 years,…
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Storro – The Best File Sharing Platform for the Printing Industry
Whether you’re working with countless small files or extremely large single items, Storro makes it easy for you and your clients to share and receive files from anywhere in the world. Storro is a cloud-based file sharing platform, designed and developed for high grade security and performance. Storro gives secure access to all your files…
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The What, Why and Where of ColorBase ICC Profiles
If you’re a print shop owner, print enthusiast, or print operator in the sign and graphics industry, you understand the significance of delivering high-quality prints to your customers. The use of an ICC profile is crucial in ensuring the quality of your prints. In this blog post, we will delve into the details of an…
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An Eye on… Fujifilm Wide Format
I recently visited the worldwide headquarters of Fujifilm’s Wide Format and Speciality Ink divisions in Broadstairs. Despite working in this industry for 26 years, Fujifilm was a company I didn’t know much about, and I wanted to put that right. What I got was a masterclass in running a modern and efficient manufacturing and distribution…
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Keeping It Neutral: Creating the Ideal Workspace to View Color
How we view and assess color is important throughout a color management strategy. While we can’t solely trust our eyes alone, there are steps we can take that make it easier and better for our eyes to see color. The Problem with Our Eyes Human eyes are frail. They become less effective with age. We…
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Print Industry 4.0 – A Glimpse of the Future
We are plagued by lack of structure. The products we are delivering as an industry are becoming increasingly complex. In our database alone, we have more than 3500 materials that all must adhere to specific standards. For each of these materials, there are optimal ink and finishing technologies that need to be used in conjunction…
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MagScience, the New Generation of Printable Magnets
This post features sponsored content. What is MagScience? MagScience by Digital Magnetics is the new generation of printable magnets based on high-tech scientific developments in the magnetic industry. These printable magnets are lighter in weight, thinner, yet stronger and more flexible, making them ideal for a wide range of indoor and outdoor applications, from advertising…
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Profile Search: 2022 In Review!
Another year has passed – and this one has been BIG for ColorBase. 2022 marked the first full calendar year that ColorBase.com has been offering the Large Format Printing Industry a single source for profile downloads. We’ve collected some interesting stats we’d like to share! Disclaimer: For the sake of clarity, we are only including…
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Reviewing Your Color Management Strategy: What Variables Are at Play?
Color management issues often aren’t discovered until we are viewing what we hoped would be the final print product. And since that’s where the problems are found, our instinct tells us that we should fix them there – at the end of the printing process. However, there are many variables that can affect color quality…
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How ColorBase is Fueling Disruptive Change
It’s not unusual for companies to be convinced about their products, strategy, or vision, but we REALLY are – and so are many of our partners. What makes us so sure that we are onto something? With a strong track record in the large format printing industry over the past 20 years, we are really…
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4 Reasons to Upgrade to the Barbieri LFP qb Textile Edition
This post features sponsored content. Digital printing on textiles is one of the industry’s fastest growing market sectors, and according to Grand View Research, is set to roughly triple in size by 2030. However, performing color measurement readings on printed textile materials is significantly more complicated than on banner media or your typical self adhesive…
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Mistakes That Can Affect Color Reproduction
When you’re trying to achieve consistent and repeatable color, your first inclination might be to jump right into making test prints, profiling your printer, or downloading profiles from ColorBase.com. But there are several tasks that should be addressed beforehand. By failing to address these variables, you can easily make a mistake that will affect your…
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Print Sample TV with Pat McGrew
Konica Minolta and MGI are well-known equipment manufacturers in the printing industry. In this Print Sample TV episode with Pat McGrew, she will show great applications from the two. Pat recently had the privilege of visiting the Konica Minolta Customer Education Center, Customer Experience Center in Japan. and got the chance to get up close…
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Why Monitor Calibration Is Important For Color Management
As human beings, we can see millions and millions of colors with our eyes. Of course, we want to be able to recreate all those colors in our prints. But that’s impossible. While we can see all these colors, our computer monitors can theoretically reproduce about 17 million colors. Beyond that, our printing devices can…
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6 Ways You Can Be More Sustainable in Print
Climate change is having a serious impact on the planet and requires not only our immediate focus, but meaningful action to avoid doing irreversible and catastrophic damage to the environment. Human activity is responsible for almost all of the increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) we have seen in the last 150 years. GHG traps heat…
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Which laminator is suitable for you?
We often hear the same question from prospective buyers in various forms: “Laminators only consist of two rollers and a motor. So why are some more expensive than others?” It’s like cars. They all have four wheels and an engine, but the price can be very different. Everyone recognizes the difference between a Mercedes and…
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Stickers – The Old School Form of Social Media
Every time I visit my barber in Rotterdam they offer me stickers, and I always accept. Partially because stickers are my field of work, but the reasons definitely run deeper than that. This got me thinking: why are we so eager to accept stickers? Most of us find other forms of advertisement bland, or downright…
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Eye on Display FESPA 22 Preview
We have picked out some of the must-see stands from the world of large format and have caught up with the FESPA organisers, Fujifilm, Antalis, Mimaki, and more. We caught up with Michael Ryan, Head of FESPA Global Print Expo itself. “We had a great opportunity in October last year in Amsterdam where, despite really…
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Can you coat it? Yes, Drytac can!
Selecting the right adhesive is critical for the success of many different types of applications and projects. Simply put, if you do not get this choice right, you risk the hard work you put in to creating the application, and potentially put the entire job and installation in jeopardy. In my role at Drytac, it…
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Rendering Intents – A Deep Dive
Anyone who has printed a picture knows that what you see on your computer or cellphone screen almost always looks very different in the final print. With family photo, we often shrug our shoulders and accept this as inevitable – after all, the moment the picture captures is often more important than what it looks…
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The Importance of a Custom Test Image for Color Verification
Have you ever taken a picture with your phone and looked at it later to realize that it was a great image? This might surprise you; but that picture just might make a great custom test image for color verification in your facility. Your Brain’s Color Memory Without even realizing it, your mind engages in…
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The magic of YUPO
Founded in 1969 as a joint venture between Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation and Oji Paper Co. Ltd, YUPO is a manufacturer of synthetic papers based on microporous synthetic polymers that combine superior functionality with unique aesthetics in an unparalleled way. What is Synthetic material? Synthetic materials are neither natural papers nor normal plastic films. Even better,…
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Set Ink Restrictions Like A Pro
One of the first and most important steps in creating profiles on a ‘halftone’ printer is setting the correct Ink Restrictions. In this blog post, I want to tell you how – and why! – to set your Ink Restrictions like a pro. Before we dive into this, it’s important to know that most RIP…
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How To Set Up Ideal Color Management Settings For Adobe Software
One of the keys to a good color management strategy is choosing the ideal settings for your RGB and CMYK working spaces in Adobe. If you choose wisely, you can open up your color gamut and achieve better consistency between print jobs. The Defaults Upon Download When you first download Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign,…
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To laminate or not to laminate? That is the question
To laminate or not to laminate? Have you ever asked yourself this question? If not, then perhaps you should. It could be the difference between winning or losing your next job. Laminates are an integral part of graphics and will be for years to come. However, there is a time and place for them –…
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Seeing Production Inkjet in Color: Why Print Providers Should Adopt Color Management Solutions
Picture this: you are walking through your favorite grocery store looking for your favorite brand of soda. You arrive at an array of bright red bottles, but some look a tad darker in color or less vibrant than the sought-after brand’s notable fire-truck red. Would you feel put off by the inconsistency on the shelf?…
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COVID, Inflation, Supply & Demand and How to Get On With Business
There is no question that many printing companies are challenged by the extremely limited paper supply and the exorbitant price increases. The increased prices influence many businesses, of course, but let’s try to understand why and how to overcome the obstacles. COVID changed the supply and demand of paper In general, prices are influenced by…
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Understanding the true value of mounting adhesives
Mounting adhesives, sometimes referred to as double-sided adhesives or double-sided mount film, were used extensively in the early days of digital imaging, but their use has waned as the availability of speciality adhesive-backed media has increased. However, mounting adhesives are by no means obsolete, and still have plenty to offer the modern-day print businesses due…
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Printer Profiles – A Deep Dive
Printer profiles are a seemingly daunting and complex topic – they have been discussed and dissected millions of times, and yet, what they are what they do still confuses people across our industry. The reality is that printer profiles are a lot less mysterious than most people think, and every print shop in the world…
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The Adobe-Pantone Split and What it Means for Printers
2022 has started with what is possibly the biggest news in the Graphics Industry in years: “Adobe to drop support for Pantone libraries in March of 2022″! Needless to say, this will have consequences for anyone involved in graphic design and printing services. While the announcement came as a surprise for most, there have certainly…
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ColorBase Blog is now live!
Welcome to our latest addition to ColorBase: the ColorBase Blog! This past year has been crazy non-stop work getting to the point where we could offer the world’s largest profile library to all of you. However, here at ColorBase, we’re just getting started! We like to dream big and therefore we continue to pursue our…
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