With our repro services, your data is prepared for the printing processes and optimized in consultation with you. Only if the complex, product-technical requirements have already been considered in the data processing can a perfect printing result in line with your ideas ultimately be achieved.
We process your individual repeats using reproduction technology and ensure that it is optimized for the chosen printing process. This includes, for example, the creation of separations and trappings as well as checking line widths. This way, we can ensure that you end up with a perfect printing result.
To achieve your desired color result, we carry out color corrections, which takes into account the print profile of your printers and the printing processes. We do this with the latest software, which allows us to simulate the printing properties of different colors using spectral data.
In consultation with you and taking the requirements of your printers into account, we prepare the cylinder layout and determine the color sequences. Naturally, we pay attention to the optimal use of resources.
Once you have shared the final file, we will create color proofs for you. These will, of course, also be prepared with your printing conditions in mind. This way, you will see what your image will look like once it has been printed.
We are pleased to also provide centralized repro and can undertake the copying for your product line. We customize the design for every country, language and format specifications and carry out color corrections that take into consideration the profiles of your printers. This way, you will be able to ensure a consistent and harmonized brand identity across different markets.
Your contact person for questions according repro services!
Then we will be delighted to go into the individual steps in our digital reproduction service! Usually, our customer has already commissioned a design and final artwork agency to create the motif they want and establish a color template for the desired print result. However, in the rare case this has not been done, we can create them ourselves on our high-end proofing machines. Our digital reproduction unit guides your orders from this point right through to printing.
The first step involves sifting through the data and verifying it for feasibility, taking into account the requirements of gravure printing. For example, the following questions need to answered:
Does a color template exist?
Are all the images used embedded or included?
Are the images used high resolution images and suitable for printing?
Are the fonts used included, embedded or converted into non-editable paths in order to avoid font errors?
Is all the necessary information such as barcodes available?
Has the file supplied already been separated into the printing colors wanted?
Does the color distribution need be adjusted, for example, to incorporate special spot colors or to economize on colors?
Does the job involve refinements (e.g. metallic colors, primers, embossing, white underlays and various varnishes)?
Following verification, we determine the number of cylinders and the color sequence required in the printing machine in consultation with the printer. We stand at the customer's side in an advisory capacity and work together with them to develop solutions in order to achieve the best possible printing result. As far as possible, we use printing cylinders from other orders in order to economize on resources. For example, if a special color for a logo is developed for one design and the same logo also appears in the same size on another job, we prepare the data so that this cylinder only needs to be engraved once and we can use it for both jobs. We do this because the careful use of resources is important to us!
The next step involves actually preparing the data. The main tool used for this purpose is Packz, an editor which has been especially developed for packaging printing. By way of example, the following steps are carried out depending on the job involved:
Separating the printing inks into the desired sequence
Creating special colors for background colors, logos and texts
Resolving fine elements (lettering, small logos, etc.) from just one color, if possible, to avoid illegibility due to register fluctuations on the printing press
Setting barcodes and checking for legibility
Reviewing and, if necessary, correcting line widths
Creating overfills and underfills at color edges between individual colors, so that so-called "flashes" (the show-through of unwanted colors) do not occur in the event of misregistrations
Image processing & color management
Considering and improving certain tonal value areas (flat areas can no longer be printed stably below a certain minimum tonal value; sometimes a reference for a design already exists, which the data has to be compared with and the new design worked out identically, etc.)
Color management is an important step in the production of cylinders to which we pay particular attention. But why?
Color management ensures that the color results on the printing press correspond to the customer requirements and specified color templates. This is particularly important, because the coloring of a print varies depending on the input device, printing color and the nature of the surface of the material to be printed. For example, the same ad looks different in the Sunday paper than it does when downloaded online and printed out on the inkjet printer at home – although it basically shows the same image.
We work with color profiles to compensate for these color differences. In cooperation with the printer, what is referred to as a "fingerprint" is made for each printer, ink series, material and printing process, which is then measured into our software. A color profile is created with the help of this measurement data, which we can use to print out designs on our plotters so we know exactly what the output from the printing machine will looks like.
Usually we also know the original profile, because design agencies usually work with standard profiles. This enables us to use GMG ColorServer to convert a file from one profile (design agency) to the other (printing press) and thus obtain the desired result in print. Of course, it is not always that simple. Sometimes we do not know the original profile or the software application alone does not provide a satisfactory result. In these cases, the know-how and expertise of our experienced operators is required, who make the necessary color adjustments using Photoshop. The designs are then matched to the color template by hand based on gradation curves and other setting levels. This is how we ensure that your color results always correspond to the color template!
Once the design has been optimized from a printing perspective and developed according to your wishes, the cylinder layout is created. The design of the packaging is copied in a grid to fill the cylinder. The markings needed to control the printing, cutting and packaging machines, and monitor identification and quality control, are also placed in the cylinder layout.
Since we work for many different customers and the requirements placed on our repro service can be very different, structured and extremely precise work and conscientious control are an absolute must. Customized PDFs with special requirements are created of both the single package (the design of a single package) and the cylinder layout (on which several packages are placed next to one another), which in most cases still need to be approved by you. Our aim is to keep the margin for errors in all of our processes as low as possible. This is why we are increasingly relying on automation of processes in many areas, but especially in creating PDFs and cylinder layouts. This means recurring work can be carried out in the background and our operators can focus their full attention on the demanding tasks that require their knowledge and expertise.
Furthermore, our operators record all relevant information and each process step for a job in an inhouse system. This allows every operator to understand and track the changes made. To round off our quality management process, we have variable checklists for each job, processed specifically according to customer and printer, making it impossible to miss a step. We also work with a large pool of standardizations and specifications that all of our employees can view at any time.
As you can see, your satisfaction and quality are always our top priority!
