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The FMCG sector (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) is one of the largest industries in the world wherein the brands are reliant on the customer attraction and product sales worldwide. It is important for brands to maintain the quality and color consistency of these products. FMCG labels printed with Spot colors by Flexography process is not cost-effective due to higher job changeover times and wastage. The most effective way of ensuring spot color reproduction is implementing Expanded Color Gamut (ECG) printing by using a fixed set of colors with four process colors namely Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black (CMYK) along with three colors Orange, Green and Violet (OGV). These seven colors provide eye-catching graphics and a larger gamut so as to reproduce maximum number of Pantone® colors. The evaluation of spot color reproduction was carried on a Nilpeter FB-430 Narrow Web Flexo press that included runs viz. Initial, Optimization, Fingerprinting, Characterization and Validation on Polypropylene substrate with UV based inks. The runs were carried as per Idealliance® specifications. The aims and tolerance as per ISO 12647-2 with CRPC 6 GRACoL 2013 for CMYK while ISO 20654 Spot Color Tonal Value (SCTV), Chroma and Hue for OGV were achieved. The customized Characterization Test Chart with 2016 patches for CMYKOGV for profile generation and Verification Test Chart with 799 patches of Pantone® Solid Coated from the Digital Library was created in CGS Oris XGamut. These Test Charts were measured using X-Rite EyeOne iO automated device. The magnitude of color match for Spot Colors by expanded gamut printing was verified on a narrow web flexography press. The gamut analysis between CRPC 6 and CMYKOGV showed that from the geometric region of Pantone® Colors Inside CMYKOGV Gamut and Outside CRPC6 Gamut, 85% of the Pantone colors were reproduced below Delta E 2.5.

Spot color is widely applied to printing and packing in modern industry, which can satisfy the individualization requirements and express the emotion of products. Color prediction is the core technique for spot color restoration. In this paper, a method that combines the least squares method and gravitation search algorithm is proposed to address the color prediction by using the absorption spectrum. Firstly, the spectral transmittance of the thin film with high transmission and low reflectance characteristics is researched to find the absorbance. Secondly, the least squares method is used to ascertain the primary colors of the spot color. Thirdly, an enhanced quantum gravitation search algorithm is designed to predict the spot color. The predicted results on the 30 spot colors show that the proposed method has higher accuracy in comparison with the three existed methods. The color differences between the prepared spot colors and the reproduced spot colors are all less than 3, in which 75% of the color differences are less 1 and 35% of the color differences are less 0.1. All the results confirm that the proposed method can predict the spot color accurately.

Watermarking has long been a necessary technology in the package printing industry for copyright protection and counterfeit prevention. However, A large number of spot colors are used in the industry, which poses a challenge for the watermarking application. In light of the integer wavelet transform (IWT) and singular value decomposition (SVD), we herein present a robust watermarking algorithm for spot color printing based on the color space transformation principle. First, a spot color channel was separated from the original image using the Neugebauer model. The image of the spot color channel was then transformed with the IWT, and the watermark was embedded in singular values of the 1-level IWT decomposed sub-bands. To enhance the security, Arnold scrambling and encryption were adopted, and a digital signature was embedded in the watermarked images. Hence, the extraction of the digital signature is required prior to the extraction of the watermark information. In the extraction stage, the watermark was extracted from the scanned grayscale image. The spot color scale was designed, and the tone correction model was established for the scanned grayscale image. A series of tests were conducted, and the results showed that the method is effective in resisting spot color distortion attacks in the print-scanning process, and the imperceptibility, capacity as well as security in the spot color are also favorable.

The main goal of the packaging production process is to ensure quality reproduction of color and design in general, so that the quality of the final product meets all requirements necessary for food packaging. Colors are one of the key components of brand recognition and the creation of an emotional connection with consumers which is the basis of this paper. Aside from conventional packaging materials, more and more food products are marketed in multi-layered flexible packaging. The samples that form the basis of this paper are printed on polyester film (PET) using a rotogravure printing technique. During the finishing phase, the PET layer are laminated on layer of aluminium (Al), oriented polyamide (OPA) and polypropylene (PP) and then, after cross linking, they are die-cut and formed into stand-up pouch. During the graphic reproduction, graphic preparation, printing and finishing processes, colors show various deviations. The main goal of this paper is to examine the influence of the individual phases of these processes on the manner in which red spot color reacts to and determines deviations (ΔE*) in relation to a defined formula and color standard. Color deviations may also occur during the finishing and sterilisation process. In order that colorimetric spot colors may be monitored, it is necessary to define a formula and standard and conduct measuring after each stage of the graphical process in the CIE L*a*b* color space. Based on the measured results, guidelines and recommendations were produced for the correction and control of color reproduction throughout the defined process which aim to reduce deviation to an acceptable level.

The main goal of the packaging production process is to ensure quality reproduction of color and design in general, so that the quality of the final product meets all requirements necessary for food packaging. Colors are one of the key components of brand recognition and the creation of an emotional connection with consumers which is the basis of this paper. Aside from conventional packaging materials, more and more food products are marketed in multi-layered flexible packaging. The samples that form the basis of this paper are printed on polyester film (PET) using a rotogravure printing technique. During the finishing phase, the PET layer are laminated on layer of aluminium (Al), oriented polyamide (OPA) and polypropylene (PP) and then, after cross linking, they are die-cut and formed into stand-up pouch. During the graphic reproduction, graphic preparation, printing and finishing processes, colors show various deviations. The main goal of this paper is to examine the influence of the individual phases of these processes on the manner in which red spot color reacts to and determines deviations (ΔE*) in relation to a defined formula and color standard. Color deviations may also occur during the finishing and sterilisation process. In order that colorimetric spot colors may be monitored, it is necessary to define a formula and standard and conduct measuring after each stage of the graphical process in the CIE L*a*b* color space. Based on the measured results, guidelines and recommendations were produced for the correction and control of color reproduction throughout the defined process which aim to reduce deviation to an acceptable level.

Conflicts often arise between farmers and experts regarding the solution for handling issues on paddy abnormality. Although multiple and serial courses are periodically conducted by the experts, yet the farmers have different ideas when dealing with paddy diseases. The disagreement regarding paddy diseases has made it difficult for Malaysia to meet its goal of producing 20 metric tons/ha. Hence, the objective of this research is to propose an automatic paddy abnormality visual recognition tool. A multi-layered Mamdani fuzzy modeling approach has been used in classifying three common paddy crop diseases, namely Blast, Brown Spot, and Narrow Brown Spot. Healthy leaf class is also included as a controlled parameter. The fuzzy classifier is designed to consist of four fuzzy membership functions by incorporating the characteristics of the lesion from the image gained from the texture analysis. Blob analysis is used in extracting features for the recognition of the lesion shape. Color charts are constructed with the help of an expert based on the RGB color space for the leaf color, lesion spot color, and lesion boundary color. In assessing a lesion, the best color match to the color charts is determined by using the Euclidean distance. An experiment is conducted where the performance of the proposed approach is compared to other classifiers which are ID3, Multi-layer Perceptron, NaA¯ve-Bayes and Decision Table/NaA¯ve-Bayes. This article proves that the proposed approach has the highest accuracy rate when compared to the other classifiers which is 85.80%, with 87.01% sensitivity and 81.24% specificity rate, respectively.

Biogeography-based optimization (BBO) is a new evolutionary algorithm which mimics the immigration and emigration of species among islands. Used widely in packaging and printing to obtain a colorful appearance, the spot color matching (SCM) is formulated as a complex multi-dimensional optimization problem. In this article, BBO is combined with the harmony search (HS) and opposition-based learning (OBL) approaches to construct an effective hybrid algorithm for solving the SCM problem. HS is used to enhance the local searching ability of BBO, and OBL is employed to increase the diversity of initial population; consequently, the exploration and exploitation abilities of the hybrid algorithm are enhanced and well balanced. Experiment results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 39, 607–615, 2014

This paper expands the study of XUT-CAPT-V2.1 System, which developed by Xian University of Technology. It analyzes how the different factors, including additive (diluent), substrates, printing pressure and printing speed, influence the reproduction of spot color matching in gravure. The results show that it must firstly ensure the accuracy of color matching trend with the deliquating of the three primary colors, which use for matching in the experiments, and then keep the color matching effect as accurate as possible and the color gamut as wide as possible. On different substrates, the printing effect is different with the same ink. The density of ink is changed in according to different printing pressure and speed.

The accurate reproduction of spot color is a difficult problem in inkjet digital proofing because of the properties of high saturation and out of the gamut of the spot color. A spot color matching method based on preserved high saturation is presented in this paper. The lightness is dealt with compression transform and modification, with the hue angle of the spot color unchanged. By this means, the precise reproduction of saturation of the spot color can be guaranteed to the maximum extent. When applying our method to the spot color matching process, the experiment result shows that, not only the property of high saturation is well preserved, but also the accuracy of spot color reproduction is improved.

Spot-color is widely used in modern package printing technology. In order to use of computer techniques in calculation the formula of spot-color, an algorithm of formula calculation for the gravure spot-color was proposed in this paper. Firstly, the spot-color was divided into ten color areas based on the theory of Munsell color system, and in IGT gravure testing system, the color proofs were printed for each color area, according to different ratio of the cyan, magenta, yellow and white ink, in order to gain the data of mathematics modeling. Then, the algorithm of matching spot-color based on Masking Equation was provided, after measuring and analyzing of the proofs. Moreover, the results of experiment in blue color area show that the algorithm, which was proposed, has good accuracy of matching spot-color. Finally, using the C++ programming language and MySQL database, the prototype computer aided gravure spot-color matching system was developed, the results of operation show that the software is available.

A new optical analytical method, "digital RGB Analysis" is proposed based on MATLAB image processing tool instead of the conventional optical method, "spectrophotometry". MATLAB image processing tool can transform the color information into digital RGB values that can be treated as analytical information. Image processing tool can simulate the optimum color variations by optimization of visual color sensor with computer assistance and thus make colorimetry (semi quantitative analysis) as an accurate determination method. The optode was constructed by immobilizing ninhydrin on TLC (thin layer chromatographic) paper. The reaction is based on complexation of ninhydrin with cadmium to result into a light purple to magenta colored spot followed by scanner based detection. Changes in RGB values of color spots on TLCstrips create a pattern. The obtained pattern was analyzed using image processing tool of MATLAB software to determine cadmium. All parameters affecting intensity on optode have been optimized. The proposed sensor was linear in the range 0.018-0.54µg mL -1 (R 2 =0.996) for G values and can sense up to 3ng mL -1 .SEM investigation of dye has also been done.The proportionality in intensity of the spot color on the optodes loaded with varying amounts of cadmium suggests its potential applications for determination of it in various samples. The paper optode can be used for pollutant check and even health check at home. Thus the paper optode has great potential for this purpose.

Spectral prediction of spot color ink has always been a difficult problem in the field of color research. The current paper adopted color parallel and superposition models to deal with the Clapper-Yule model and to simplify the prediction model of spectral reflectance of spot color ink. respectively. Based on the experimental verification. the simplified method has a certain practical application value. and the spot color prediction of general presswork can meet the requirements fully. The most important consideration is that the simplification can largely reduce the computational difficulty. Moreover. the current paper compared the accuracy of color parallel model with the superposition model to simplify the spectral prediction model of spot color ink. The result showed that the color superposition model has higher accuracy in simplifying the spectral prediction model of spot color ink.

With the development of fluorescent technology, the application area of fluorescent material is expanding, which includes the fields of traffic, national defence, architecture, detection, decoration etc. In the field of printing, whether in the value of utility or view and admire, fluorescent adds tremendous energies. However, a majority of fluorescent materials used nowadays contain radioelement, which will do harm to human health. This paper considers the needs of fluorescent map printing, according to the defects of traditional fluorescent material such as low brightness, short duration time, strong radioactivity, limitation to spot color printing etc. It improves the capability of long fluorescent lag material and makes red, blue, green and yellow long fluorescent lag materials. Meanwhile, it tests the influence of ink thickness, illumination time and granule size etc. on irradiance capability. The thicker the ink is, the longer of the lag time will be. The bigger the granule size is, the lag time will be. It also tests its radioactivity extent, which is in the safety range and reaches the standard of environmental protection. According to the special requirement of map printing, this paper brings forward the technique scheme of the application of long fluorescent lag ink in map printing,which realizes the color fluorescent map printing.

Three traditional color separation methods such as automatic color separation of fabric CAD, self-defined primary color separation and spot color separation are analyzed by comparison , the advantages and disadvantages of color separation based on cluster analysis are discussed by tests . On this basis, an improved fabric color separation method is put forward based on genetic fuzzy clustering algorithm, and the experimental results show that the fidelity of fabric patterns after color separation using this improved method is superior to that after color separation using traditional color separation method.

The admixture of Spot-color ink is generally determined by experience to make sure the type of primary color and the use of each ink, and then change the proportion of each primary color by the chromaticity control or visual experience. While this approach is difficult to admixture a qualified spot color ink, it also easily leads to the waste of ink. This paper did many researches and experiments on how to establish a spot color matching system based on the calculation of ink. Through the calculation of the largest ink thickness on paper, the model of the total estimated amount of printing based on image is established. Then this paper adopts the method of three stimulate value matching to establish the spot-color matching model based on Kubelka-Munk law. Through the combination of these two models above, spot color matching system based on ink calculation is finally established, and verified through the actual printing.

The demand for reproduction of printing color vastly expands, which significantly promotes the application of the spot-color ink. To improve the accuracy and practicability of color matching, the Kubelka–Munk color-matching theory and the improved spectrophotometric uniform color space weight factor color-matching method are applied to construct two matching models. The four-color (C, M, Y, W) model is established on the basis of three-color model (C, M, Y), and the derivations of the two models will be shown. In addition, a new experimental program is designed for ink toner to obtain the basic data of color matching. Prediction recipes are obtained by using MATLAB software for matrix arithmetic. And the accuracy and practicability of color-matching models are verified through the experiment. The results show that two models are feasible for better utility of the spot-color matching.

In spot color ink blending filed, accurate quantitative extracting equipment makes work easy. The auto quantitative extracting equipment is designed for offset ink and is assembled from ink delivery unit, double different diameter values which are controlled by electromagnetism, measurement unit, and control software. The system degree of accuracy and stability declines, but the system efficiency for extracting ink is improved, when pumping pressure in ink delivery unit is increased. The optimal work parameters are determined by accuracy, stability, and efficiency. The pumping pressure scale of ink delivery unit, the relationship of double valves, and the control software of system are discussed. The fluid characteristics of ink also are considered. It is showed that the auto quantitative measuring equipment meets the requirements of spot color blending requirement, and the waste is avoided.

Because the model of flexographic spot-color matching based on Kubelka–Munk theory is proposed for the dye matching, it will produce color difference and affect color accuracy when it is applied to the ink matching. In this paper, the model of computer color matching based on double-constant Kubelka–Munk theory is improved. The model of flexographic spot-color matching in which the water-based ink is used as printing ink and corrugated paper is used as substrate is formed. In this model, first the sample data are obtained by using IGT printability tester. Then, tristimulus value matching theory is its basic, and a series of mathematical calculations are used to obtain the initial matching values. And then, a more accurate formula is obtained through multiple iterations. Finally, the improved matching model is completed. The experimental results show that the model can quickly complete the color matching, and the result is accurate and stable. Moreover, the matching model meets the requirements of environmental protection and has good prospects.

Color matching system is a specialized software solution geared towards spot color matching. It contains spectral reflectance import, data calculation, and formula export. In virtue of a generic open data base connectivity (ODBC) interface, data analysis is performed by statistics and analysis software connecting to a database. The color matching database (CMD) application is developed in ink formulation studies, and is established including four modules: primary ink information database, substrate information database, spot color database (target color), and ink formula database. This paper describes the design and establishing of CMD. The database is built on MySQL. Formula ink can be selected by searching target color number. The results show that the adoption of MySQL program application is feasible, flexible, low-cost and user-friendly way of managing research data in color matching system.

In January 2014, Digimarc announced Digimarc® Barcode for the packaging industry to improve the check-out efficiency and customer experience for retailers. Digimarc Barcode is a machine readable code that carries the same information as a traditional Universal Product Code (UPC) and is introduced by adding a robust digital watermark to the package design. It is imperceptible to the human eye but can be read by a modern barcode scanner at the Point of Sale (POS) station. Compared to a traditional linear barcode, Digimarc Barcode covers the whole package with minimal impact on the graphic design. This significantly improves the Items per Minute (IPM) metric, which retailers use to track the checkout efficiency since it closely relates to their profitability. Increasing IPM by a few percent could lead to potential savings of millions of dollars for retailers, giving them a strong incentive to add the Digimarc Barcode to their packages. Testing performed by Digimarc showed increases in IPM of at least 33% using the Digimarc Barcode, compared to using a traditional barcode. A method of watermarking print ready image data used in the commercial packaging industry is described. A significant proportion of packages are printed using spot colors, therefore spot colors needs to be supported by an embedder for Digimarc Barcode. Digimarc Barcode supports the PANTONE spot color system, which is commonly used in the packaging industry. The Digimarc Barcode embedder allows a user to insert the UPC code in an image while minimizing perceptibility to the Human Visual System (HVS). The Digimarc Barcode is inserted in the printing ink domain, using an Adobe Photoshop plug-in as the last step before printing. Since Photoshop is an industry standard widely used by pre-press shops in the packaging industry, a Digimarc Barcode can be easily inserted and proofed.

The existing technology of color separation,especially the spot color separation,can no longer meet the requirements of prepress processing efficiency or printing quality.Concerning this situation,the Fuzzy C-Means(FCM) clustering algorithm was put forward.The algorithm,based on the classification of pixels,carried fuzzy clustering on the grayscale of images in order to get image clustering center at first,and then put each pixel to the corresponding category according to the grayscale of each pixel and the maximum membership degree.The experimental result shows that image segmentation based on fuzzy rules is intuitive and easy to realize and has achieved a good segmentation effect.

Color measurement and control of printing has been an important issue in computer vision technology . In the past, people have used density meter and spectrophotometer to measure the color of printing product. For the color management of 4 color press, by these kind meters, people can measure the color data from color bar printed at the side of sheet, then do ink key presetting. This way have wide application in printing field. However, it can not be used in the case that is to measure the color of spot color printing and printing pattern directly. With the development of multispectral image acquisition, it makes possible to measure the color of printing pattern in any area of the pattern by CCD camera than can acquire the whole image of sheet in high resolution. This essay give a way to measure the color of printing by multispectral camera in the process of printing. A 12 channel spectral camera with high intensity white LED illumination that have driven by a motor, scans the printing sheet. Then we can get the image, this image can include color and printing quality information of each pixel, LAB value and CMYK value of each pixel can be got by reconstructing the reflectance spectra of printing image. By this data processing, we can measure the color of spot color printing and control it. Through the spot test in the printing plant, the results show this way can get not only the color bar density value but also ROI color value. By the value, we can do ink key presetting, that makes it true to control the spot color automatically in high precision.

To watermark spot color packaging images one modulates available spot color inks to create a watermark signal. By perturbing different combinations of inks one can change the color direction of the watermark signal. In this paper we describe how to calculate the optimal color direction that embeds the maximum signal while keeping the visibility below some specified acceptable value. The optimal color direction depends on the starting color for the image region, the ink density constraints and the definition of the watermark signal. After a description of the general problem of N spot color inks we shall describe two-ink embedding methods and try to find the optimal direction that will maximize robustness at a given visibility. The optimal color direction is usually in a chrominance direction and the resulting ink perturbations change the luminosity very little. We compare the optimal color embedder to a single-color embedder.

Most packaging is printed using spot colors to reduce cost, produce consistent colors, and achieve a wide color gamut on the package. Most watermarking techniques are designed to embed a watermark in cyan, magenta, yellow, and black for printed images or red, green, and blue for displayed digital images. Our method addresses the problem of watermarking spot color images. An image containing two or more spot colors is embedded with a watermark in two of the colors with the maximum signal strength within a user-selectable visibility constraint. The user can embed the maximum watermark signal while meeting the required visibility constraint. The method has been applied to the case of two spot colors and images have been produced that are more than twice as robust to Gaussian noise as a single color image embedded with a luminance-only watermark with the same visibility constraint.