How to Check the Quality of Color Box Printing

At present, there are two main detection technologies for the quality of color box printing: colorimetric method and density method. Among them, the density method is a process control mode that controls key links in the printing production process based on the thickness of the ink layer. The chromaticity method is a high-precision system control mode that controls color based on intuitive measurements of chromaticity or spectral reflectance, but requires comprehensive consideration of printing materials, application environments, and testing purposes for color box printing.


Firstly, the quality inspection of color box printing includes density, dot enlargement, registration, and gloss. Due to the constraints of surface gloss of special materials, it is necessary to use testing instruments that use d/0 to measure optical geometric conditions in density and dot measurement. It is best to use a spectrophotometer that divides the visible light band of 400-700nm into 31 measurement intervals according to the principle of spectroscopy, measures the reflectance of the object's color spectrum, and then obtains the CIELab value and color difference of the color, such as the SP series of X-Rite. Thus, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of measurement data for high gloss surface materials. Measuring instruments such as the X-Rite900 series, which are applied to the geometric conditions of 0/45 of ordinary materials, cannot achieve consistent and accurate results

Secondly, testing and controlling the printing quality of special materials. In the packaging of color boxes, the application and innovation of special and new materials is a trend, such as the development of cigarette packs from paper soft packs and cardboard hard packs to aluminum foil gold silver cardboard hard packs. These composite or coated materials with high gloss surfaces have a metallic luster and refractive surface. After printing exquisite patterns in various colors, they give people a feeling of high-end elegance, which can greatly enhance the value-added space of products. They are widely used in high-end color boxes. This type of high gloss surface material has a strong metallic luster due to its flat surface coating. When incident light is irradiated, there will be strong specular reflection. Therefore, the surface color appearance of objects will change with the change of observation angle, making it difficult to control the color during the printing production process. This poses a quality control challenge for the printing factory to ensure the consistency of ink color for the same batch of prints, and even for different batches of prints, as well as its special testing technology requirements for color box printing.