Your Colour Partner

March. 2011 Patrick Cioni

Digital decoration advantages

- Allows to decorate tiles with structure. - Can be used alone, or combined with traditional aplications. - Helps to make new projects faster. - Switching of models in production is easier. - Big size design.

Economic advantages
- Increases the % of first choice. - Less personal in the glazing line. - Lower logistic costs - Reduces time in start-up and change of models. - Smaller stock due to reduced number of colours.

Colorobbia services and policy

- Minimize change in glaze compositions. - Increase the technical background of the customers. - Study of Customer's Gammut.

It is possible to work with all the digital machines?

Already homologated with: Projecta (Xaar) Tecnoferrari (Xaar) Cretaprint (Xaar) Intesa (Xaar) Kerajet (Seiko,Xaar) System-Rotodigit (Spectra Dimatix) In process of homologation Durst (Spectra Dimatix)

Which are Colorobbia colours?

Cyan
(Co-Al)

Cyan
(Co-Si)

Brown

Pink

Beige

Yellow

Black

Green

Which are the advantages of Colorobbia Cinks?

No toxicity No A.D.R.

Compatible with water

High stabilized organic-inorganic system. Eqilibrated and complete colour Gamut . Don't etch machines, nor Rotocolor drums.

Minimal cleaning during industrial production.

Which are the best ink configurations ?

4 Colours
Floor Wall Floor Wall

5 Colours

6 Colours

Floor & Wall

Xaar printheads
Typical Alternatives

Seiko printheads

Typical

Alternatives

Why 4 colours?
According to the colour laws, the basic colours are 3 : Blue, Magenta or Brown and Yellow .

In Four-colour process (CMYK), the Black colour helps to get darker tonalities, and to have a more efficient use of the colours.

Are 6 colours better than 4?

Yes , because : The basic ceramic gamut is limited. We add the Black to look for darker tonalities. Pink expands the Gamut. Beige widens yellow range.

Gamut traditional and digital

It is better a equlibrated colour range, or a intense one ?

An equilibrated colour range is preferable, because it avoids the predominance of colours. The intensity is important, but always in a equilibrated system.

Can we reproduce all the tonalities ? Can we reproduce all Rotocolor models?

Not all the tonalities, but around 80% of the are in our Gamut. We can reproduce the colours that are in the customer Gamut. We can help with the conversion of a model from Rotocolor to digital impresion.

Which hardware and software we need to start?

Hardware:

Powerful computer.
Spectrophotometer Software: Photoshop. Programs for colour management.

Why the water condensation can be a problem?

The water vapour of the tiles gets in contact with the printheads plate and inks increasing its viscosity. This leads to the formation of a thin layer of ink with higer viscosity which reduces the printing quality and forces to frequent cleaning.

How we can minimize the condensation problem?

Reducing the tiles temperature down to 40 45 C before the digital printing.

How much ink we can apply on the tiles?

Machine of 4 printing bars. Maximum. 20 gr/m2 Normal. 5-6 gr/m2

Digital machine
Production line

2 Colour 1 Colour 3 Colour

4 Colour

Printheads

What is resolution or d.p.i?

Resolution or d.p.i = DOTS PER INCH There is a Vertical Resolution also called native and fixed by the kind of print-heads used and an horizontal resolution which changes depending on the speed of production.

512 nozzles each row

Xaar
printhead
7 cm
360 dpi Fixed

RESOLUTION
Changes with speed

Row 1

Row 2

256 nozzles each row

Seiko
Printhead

7 cm

RESOLUCIN RESOLUTION
Changes with the speed

Row 1

Row 2

180180 dpi dpi Fija Fixed

How many printheads we need?

Depends on the tile size: Each Printhead is 7 cm, so if you have tile wide 33 cm in the direccion of lhe line you will need 5 Printheads for each color

33 cm

The length of the tile is not important

How is related the speed of printing with the resolution?

Speed 24 m/min
Xaar Spectra Seiko GS

Resolution* 360 dpi 180 dpi

33 m/min 270 dpi

48 m/min

36 m/min up to 460dpi 43m/min up to 554 dpi

Can we increase productivity without loosing print quality with Xaar Printheads?
Yes, we can reduce the horizontal resolution without loosing quality. Acording to our experience , we can reduce horizontal resolution until 270 dpi without visible loss of quality, increasing the production speed up tol 33m/min. The resolution will be higher than Rotocolors
Digital printing :360x270 dpi, and Rotocolor 100x100 dpi.

Drop formation
Xaar printhead
Basic drop 6 pl 2x drop 6 pl 3x drop 6 pl 1 Level 2Level 3Level

7x drops 6 pl

7Level

6pl 12pl 18pl

42pl

pl =10exp12 litros = 0,000000000001 litros

Drop formation
Seiko GS printhead
Basic drop 12 pl 2x drop 12 pl 3x drop 12 pl 1 Level 2Level 3Level

7x drops 12pl

7Level

12pl 24pl 36pl

84pl

pl =10exp12 litros = 0,000000000001 litros

Drop Formation and problems

Main Satellite Mist

Smaller Satellites
Main Drop

This whole process happens in less than 80 microseconds.

Drop Reliability
Xaar y Seiko printheads
1 level 3 levels 7 levels
2mm
4mm

5mm

Printing modes
Binary:
Recomended in designs with a lot of ink

Grey Scale
Grey Scale 2
Recomended in designs with medium colour and diferent mesh areas

Grey Scale 4
Recomended in designs using low quantity of ink, and diferent mesh areas

Printing modes

Printing modes
Binary
Xaar Cretaprint Xaar Projecta Seiko GS Seiko Bin Bin 1 Bin 2 Bin 3 Bin 4 Bin GS3 GS4 Bin Bin GS2 GS3 GS3 GS4

Grey Scale
GS4 GS5 GS5 GS6 GS6 GS7 GS7 GS8

Xaar Printhead X1001

Ink Out
Ink In

Ink Flow

Xaar
Recirculation and printing problems
Normal recirculation speed
Ink Nozzles

High speed
Air bubble

Meniscus defor med by the high recirculation speed

Air

Meniscus

Perfect result

Lines problems

Xaar
Recirculation and printing problems
Normal recirculation speed
Ink

Slow speed

Nozzles Drop

Meniscus

Due to low speed

Perfect result

Lines problems

Printing problems
Normal condition
Ink Nozzles Inverted meniscum

Seiko

Drop problems Air problems

Air

Air

Good printing

White lines problems

White lines problems

How often we must stop and clean the printheads?

Cleaning frequency depends of the design produced, working conditions, inks and the kind of printheads.
Normal
Difficult Kerajet Binary Cleaning time : aprox

4
1 0.25 2 minutes

hours
hour hours

Ink composition affects the working life of the printheads?

Yes, in the following order:

M2 produced >Solid concentration in ink > Chemical structure of the pigment

How long is the inks shelf life ?

Colorobbia guarantees the inks for 6 months since production date if the inks are correctly stored. Store preferably in a fresh, dry and dust free environment.

Are there any problems sending Cinks by Plane/Boat/Truck?

No problem at all. CINKS are not A.D.R: they can be sent by air, with a clear logistical advantage.

It is necessary special equipment to handle the inks?

Since Cinks are no Toxic, the only precaution needed is the use of the basic personal equipment protections: Glasses Plastic nitrilo gloves

Do inks need special handling before charging the machine?

We do suggest to shake well the bottle, to remove possible sedimentation during the stocking time. Then wait a few minutes before charging the machine to avoid printing problems.

There are any special products useful before /after the digital printing?
Several products are under testing , to help to : Fix the inks in the unfired tile. Reduce superficial tension. Protect the inks from evaporation. Fast ink drying, in case of aplication of a big amount of ink

Gestion of colour
Additive colours Sustractive colours

Red + Green + Blue = White

Monitor,Scanner,Photocamera, Projector....

Cyan + Magenta + Yellow = Black

Offset printing , Ink printing...

Why we need the profiles?

A profile is an identity card of the device with all the information. It describes behavior of the colours on our interface or device. Ex: We need profiles to produce the real colour of a photograph to a Monitor. If the monitor is not profiled the result could be far from reality.

Real image

Image with a non calibrated monitor

Red color changes

Ceramic profile

Profiles

Colour space
Adobe RGB Apple RGB R255,G85,B29 R255,G85,B29

The same numbers RGB gives diferent results, depending of the colour space that we use.

Input and Output Device

Input Device: The profile translatethe Lab values to RGB values RGB 80,23,67 Lab 23,60,-31 Lab 20,37,-11
It deppends of the color space

Output Device: The profile translate the CMYK colour to Lab values .

Colorimetric conversion between a Input and Output device .

Input Device
L A1 18 A2 19 L A 11 22 A B 2 5 B R 43 51 R G 29 26 G B 31 27 B

Output Device
C
A1 63 A2 52 C

M
78 80 M

Y
68 7 Y

K
26 76 K

L
15 19 L

A
10 22 A

B
2 5 B

How is the ceramic Gamut?

RGB

Ceramic CBrBeK

How we represent the colours that are out of Gamut?

There are Four ways of Rendering intents:
Perceptual. Saturation. Relative Colorimetric. Absolute Colorimetric.

Perceptual

All the colour game gets compressed, not only the part that is out of the destination colour space. In this way we keep stable the relationship between colurs. It's considered the best option for photographs.

Saturation

It moves the colours until saturation, even if this affects clearly the tones and hues of the colurs. This option is used for graphic presentations.

Relative Colorimetric

All the colours from the original space that can be reproduced in the destination space remain without modification. The others, that cannot be reproduced in the space of destination are simulated with the colour motor conversion. It is useful when we have small number of colours in the design.

Absolute Colorimetric

It doesn't compress nor expand the whole gamut. Each colour is transformed separatly: if it's inside the destination gamut, remains unchanged; if it's outside, it get replaced by the most similar one.

Original File

Rendering intents Ceramic profile C Br Be P

Which instruments we have to profile?

We must profile all the instruments used in the process of adquisition and impression of images: Monitor Scanner Photocamera Printer

What we need to calibrate and profile a computer monitor?

A spectophotomer and a software as Profile Maker, in order of calibrate and profile the monitor.
We suggest to calibrate the monitor every month, as from this depends the realibility of your trials.

Why and how many Profiles of Glaze do we need?

We need to do a profile of the glaze to ensure that the result that you have on your monitor is as nears as you can with the fired tile.

One profile for each glaze One profile for each different configuration of colours One profile for each Digital Printer

Color Port
Create linearization Read linearization .tiff image .lin file .tiff image

Create Colour Chart with linearization embedded Optional Cut of total amount of ink

.tiff image

Read Colour Chart

.txt file

How we generate a profile?

Once we have the txt file we can generate a profile with one of these programs : Profile Maker BasICColor NeoProfiler ...

How can we install the profile and where can we find it ?

Windows: install the profile with the mouse right botton. The profile will be stored in:
C:/Windows/System32/Spool/drivers/Color

Mac Computers: you must copy the profile in: Hd Library Colorsync - Profiles

Colour Management in Photoshop

It's important to select in Color Settings the choice of Preserve Embedded Profiles . If the program converts to Working profile the visualization of the file will be wrong. Select Ask When Opening... in the Color Management Settings.

Colour Management in Photoshop

If we select a image without profile embedded, we will see this warning:
If we select a image With a profile embedded that is not the one used at the moment in the workspace, we will see this warning:

What is the difference between Convert Profile and "Assign Profile ?

When you Assign the profile you dont change the values of each colour, but it will change the interpretation of each one. When you Convert the profile you will convert the colour values to the new colour space.
We suggest to convert to the profile as the last step before printing.

Proof Setup

In this way we don't change profile and we have a preview of the final result with all the rendering options. There is no loss of information. When we want to print the file, we must convert with the same profile and rendering intent.

Profiles conversion
- When we convert from a colour space to another smaller, we loose information that cannot be recovered.

RGB to CMYK Ceramic

Graphic Management
- Use Graphic Management if the Colour Management doesn't give good results. - With Graphic Management the possibilty of Loss of information is higher compared with only graphic management. - Graphic Management depends on technical capability.

Project development
- A graphic studio presents a design. - Colour gestion. Profile generation -Graphic gestion. Design modification. - Production.

Your Colour Partner

Thanks