x-rite exact

You Bought a Spectrophotometer…But Can You Really Use It?

So a year or so back you may have invested in an X-Rite eXact Spectrophotometer. Or maybe you have an older device and are wondering what the latest technology has to offer. Either way, you made an investment to solve a particular color management challenge in your shop. But these many months later, are you getting the most you can out of one of these small but powerful devices? It doesn’t matter whether you are printing labels on a narrow web flexo press, running a wide web CI press or producing offset folding cartons, managing color is critical and your ability to handle color is one of the things that keeps customers coming back.

Like many digitally empowered tools, the eXact spectrophotometer is packed full of features and capabilities many owners don’t use on a regular basis and some of which they may not even be aware. Available in four different versions (Densitometer, Standard, Advanced, and XP), the eXact can be used to accurately measure color for multiple lighting conditions, different Delta E methods, across multiple color spaces and Pantone colors, as well as accounting for opacity and even metamerism—the tendency for color to vary in hue and tonality depending on the light source.

Eliminating rework

With all these capabilities, getting the maximum value out of the eXact spectrophotometer requires a complete understanding of the tool, its settings and how to apply them on a daily basis. These skills are essential to controlling and managing color throughout a print shop and ensuring jobs are printed correctly the first time.

To provide a foundation for this knowledge, Anderson & Vreeland Technologies Specialist, Kevin Schilling, is hosting a free Tech Tips webinar at 1 PM EDT on Thursday, June 30 to demonstrate some of the key features of the eXact spectro. Think of the webinar as a walk-through of the key features and capabilities. An entrée to more advanced training, such as X-Rite’s free tutorials and the company’s extensive and highly detailed fee-based online training.

“The webinar will help printers and packaging converters learn how to truly understand, control, manage and communicate color across the entire color network and avoid unwanted reprint and rework” says Schilling.

A focus on the color

Producing quality work is all about accurate color and being able to measure it accurately. The webinar will take you through a host of controls and settings that help ensure you are getting the most out of the eXact spectrophotometer. You’ll learn about:

  • How setting a wide range of measurement functions can help identify problems and ensure accuracy on press, such as how differences in lighting and substrates affect the color printed.
  • Comparing colors from different sources to help deliver the colors you (and your customers) expect.
  • Navigating the touch screen menus of the eXact spectrophotometer and interpreting the functions to make the most of the information it provides.
  • How to take an initial color measurement, do a color drawdown and be able to adjust color as needed to achieve the desired color.

And there’s more! For instance XP, the latest version of the eXact spectro is designed specifically for film converters. Its key feature is the ability to alleviate the challenges of managing color variances due to the orientation of the film. Normally, trying to adjust for this can be a time-consuming problem without an accurate digital color measurement tool, but with the proper settings dialed in the eXact spectro reads the color correctly without regard to film orientation.

Understanding these and numerous other settings can help users get optimal performance and maximize the value of their eXact spectrophotometer. Whether you already have a X-Rite eXact spectrophotometer and want to get more out of your device, or are looking to add one to your shop’s arsenal of color management tools, the free Anderson & Vreeland webinar is a great place to begin raising the bar on your operation’s color management practices. Be sure to sign up now and tune in on June 30 at 1 PM EDT.