No place on Earth has produced more fundamental contributions to the development of printing than China. Paper, relief printing, and moveable type—the very foundations of the industry—all emerged from China beginning over 2000 years ago. Today, China is widely recognized as the best place for outsourcing printing services. In this blog series, we will share some tips and key references that will be useful to newbies and pros alike.
Ink Color and Proofing
Process color and Pantone color ink systems are identical between other countries and China.
However, process inks in China generally follow the Japanese standard, so it is not entirely accurate to assume a piece printed in your country will have an identical result in China. You should always see color correct proofs before proceeding to print. Furthermore, in China, depending on the product being made, proofing may be done either by the digital proofing process, probably most common in your country, OR by a traditional film separation method, whereby ‘wet proofs’ are made by applying color in successive passes to the paper specified for production using small, one-color proofing presses. Both processes have their place.
Click here for a comparison of CTF and CTP proofing processes!
http://www.chinaprintingsolutions.com/CTPVersusCTF.htm
That being said, few China factories use real ICC color profiles/press fingerprinting or are practiced in calibrating to a baseline standard like SWOP or FOGRA. Instead, it is common to manage color according to the output curves of individual facility platesetters and adjust images if necessary based on digital proofs produced using the same curves.
If color matching is critical, you’ll want to provide your files early and be prepared to make some adjustments before press time.
Production Tip
Very few Chinese factories actually procure Pantone inks, instead preferring to custom mix process colors to reach the target identified by a Pantone color. It is therefore imperative that you indicate C, U, or M along with the Pantone number to give a visual reference for your color target. Better yet, the ideal solution is to provide a physical printed swatch or Pantone chip to clearly identify the desired end result.
