Hexachrome

In 1994 at a Trade Show in Boston, we first saw an experimental image printed using the Hexachrome™  process. The result was stunning and seemed to meet with our desire to create new opportunities for our clients. "The essence of High Fidelity Colour is a visible difference. A difference that delivers the full potential of the subject without compromise to colours, texture or detail."

As a result of the Group's reputation and their successful adoption of FM screening, we are able to work with the software and ink suppliers in the commercialisation of Hexachrome™.

Hi-Fi Colour Printing enables messages to stand out in a competitive and crowded market place.
Continuous testing made possible only by the recent installation of additional 6 colour Heidelberg presses brought the software to a stable state. This experimental period enabled us to gain a unique insight into the whole process of multicolour separations. Today the Group is confident of this ability to deliver true Hi-Fi printing to the design community.

The Problem

Colour is a particularly complex phenomenon, and it is important to remember there are three ways to view colour; in nature, on a monitor or printed on paper, and that the subject can and most probably will look different!
This difference is due to the compromises that have to be made in capturing or recreating colour.
The colour gamut of film used to capture images and monitors used to create images is much greater than the printable colour gamut. Colours that pose real problems for conventional process  printing like orange, deep blues and red are well known. However, the reality is that all colours suffer from a reduced gamut and further the use of conventional screen angles limits the amount of ink that can be successfully applied on press.

The Solution

Hi-Fi Colour changes everything from the capture of images in scanning through proofing and plate-making but in a logical and controllable manner. Firstly, to separate out more data, it must be captured or created. This simply means working and starting in RGB for composite images or using a scanner that can capture and deliver images in an RGB format. Once captured, these images are separated out using the specially developed and approved separation software. Then instead of conventional screen angles being applied, Random or FM screening is used. The six plates necessary for Hexachrome™ are then produced and the printing process begun. The 'new' specifically generated separations, together with the correct colour data for the Hexachrome™ ink set give rise to the image quality printed overleaf; images that illustrate how colour can become more colour with Hexachrome™.

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Natural Light

The actual spectrum of light is composed of millions and millions of colours and the human eye has a much wider colour monitors or process colour.

 

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Additive Primaries

The human eye, coour film, monitor and even T.V. work by combining red, green and blue and although this gamut is smaller than the colour spectrum it is much wider than the conventional process printing gamut.

 

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Subtractive Primaries

The result is that all the colours have to be compressed, making design more difficult and often resulting in images looking flat. This has resulted in the use of special processes and inks to try and give life to print, or to obtain those colours which have been difficult or in some cases impossible to print.