Harmonizing Instrument

Every instrument performs differently even if they are the same make and model. While this difference may be great between different manufacturers they also are different with the same make and model of instrument. Any difference is important to recognize as part of your color conformance program. 

The harmonization process if for a specific printing process and includes the print process and substrate in use. The goal is to have a consistent way to evaluate the instrument and reduce the error between instruments by aligning them more closely together. By eliminating this difference, we can best understand the results. At this point, you should have already baselined your instruments to ensure they are verified and now we can minimize the difference between instruments and define a Master instrument as a reference.

If we use a Spectrophotometer to measure print - this usually means that we are dealing with two basic elements: the print base and the print itself. Printing is understood as a thin layer, generally using semi-transparent paint, toner, or ink. Different printing technologies introduce pigments to the substrate in different ways and its physical form is the combination of ink and substrate. the results are different for offset, inkjet, flexo, or digital printing. The printing substrate has a lot of possible substances - it is often paper but also surface-modified. This structure when viewed as enlarged, is not smooth and has a structure affecting both visually and also by the instruments. In addition to paper, we print on various other materials such as plastics, fabrics, and even metal that have significant surface differences.

As if this diversity was still not enough, the surface finish radically changes the environment in which the light measuring the color takes place. Covering the surface with a laminated film that can have the glue layer in it, or varnish the surface - matte or shiny modifies the model of the measurement environment. Optical and physical phenomena turn out to be difficult to predict, and intuition usually fails.

Keep in mind that this is specific to a printing process so should bhe used appropriately. While all instruments should be baselined and verified on a regular basis, harmonization is for the most critical and repeatable print processes.

Harmonizer 

This industry breakthrough technology - (option of Instrument Inspector) enables the ability to normalize the differences between all instruments in your production chain. Select one "Master Instrument" and ChromaChecker will recalculate "on-the-fly" incoming measurement data to match Master Instrument as close as possible. 

All Instruments requiring normalization have to be registered in Instrument Inspector and physical Instrument Inspector targets have to be measured. When setting up the Harmonizer technology each Instrument has to measure the target 10-20 times ( recommended at least +5) to build a Baseline, which creates an average definition of how the instrument "measures" color. 

When baselines are created, the system creates correction profiles for each instrument in relationship to Master Instrument. The stored information will be used for future data recalculation.

Each Instrument, including the Master, requires routine verification to ensure that the correction profile is up-to-date. This routine gives additional knowledge about the current instrument state – if a device is consistent and precise in its measurements.

Harmonizing measurements.

ChromaChecker Instrument Inspector allows you to significantly approximate measurements made on the same sample by different instruments. This process is called harmonization. For harmonization to have the expected effectiveness, we created a special target called H-100. It is a target that should be printed on the substrate and in a technology that will be harmonized in the future. If we print on different substrates in diversified technology and with varying finishes of surface - for each of these printing conditions we have to prepare a separate harmonization correction.

H-100 Target

In practice, this means that we print H-100 on various substrates and various printing devices. For the harmonization of the proofer, for example, we need to print the H-100 on this machine using proofing paper. On a similar principle, if on an offset press we use UV inks and dispersion varnish by printing on coated paper - this is the printout we need to prepare.

In Instrument Inspector we assumed that each user must indicate the most accurate and stable spectrophotometer - which will be indicated as a master. All other instruments will try to imitate the main one. Now that we have chosen the master instrument, you have the H-100 Target printed in different printing conditions - it has to be measured by the instrument indicated for harmonization and by the Master one.

Print Inspector works by tracks - these describe different printing conditions - it is easy to assign corresponding H-100 Targets that are different for various printing devices, instruments, or printing conditions.
Implementation of harmonization for one print medium - when we have finished printouts takes several minutes - this is not a very complicated process. Because we introduce harmonization to improve measurement accuracy - each target has to be measured many times - how much - depends on expectations - but five measurements seem to be a reasonable minimum. Note that multiple measurements show us variances - this is a parameter resulting from the variation of not only measurements - but the uniformity of printing - it happens that solids and tints are not reproduced perfectly - multiple capturing of the same target distinctly reveal this.

Implementation

Measurement data assigned to various copies of the H-100 will automatically create baselines for us. The calculations will be made on our own without our participation - the user only needs to assign the right instrument to each track and indicate which of the H-100 targets describes the printing conditions in a given track.

Instrument Inspector Harmonizer H-100 Target

Control strip	Description
H-100 Standard	Standard version for most handheld instruments - various sizes included.
H-100 iSis	Special version with two additional columns - dedicated for X-Rite iSis, but easy to scan with i1Pro or other handheld instruments
H-100 Barbieri	A special version – dedicated for Barbieri Instruments, but easy to scan with i1Pro and other handheld instruments
H-100 Single Row	Single Row version dedicated for instruments like X-Rite® eXact Scan, Intellitrax or others like Techkon SpectraDrive
H-100 Extra Large	Standard layout with extra big patches (20x20mm) for spot mode - dedicated for benchtops, colorimeters, and large aperture devices.

Note: CGATS Target definitions are CMYK only while PDF is based on both CMYK and Lab spaces! This is made intentionally to dynamically adopt Target to the current device's print conditions. We strongly recommend using PDF for printing.