datacolor|Techkon announces release of ChromaQA 7.5 colour management suite

Print Solutions

datacolor|Techkon has announced that a new update of its colour quality assessment management suite is now available.

ChromaQA 7.5 is now available, bringing 18 new features and enhancements across Spec, Press, Standards, Admin, and SmartInk. Highlights include the ability to specify measurement locations within artwork, import colour standards from an ICC profile, customize drawdown reports, and create multiple ScoreCards.

Across the suite, version 7.5 gives users more control over how colour standards are created, measured, evaluated, and reported. The release also expands support for PantoneLive, Colibri colorant sets, SmartInk corrections, and SpectroCheck calibration reporting, helping printers and brands simplify everyday colour quality workflows.

‘ChromaQA 7.5 offers more flexible colour quality control for printers and brands than ever before,’ said Martin van Balkom, vice president of marketing, Techkon USA.

When creating templates in Chroma Spec, it is now possible to upload a PDF or JPG image of the printed artwork. This not only allows the press operator to have visual confirmation of the print job but also enables the user to specify the exact measurement locations inside the image after selecting the colour standards.

When building job templates in Chroma Spec, the option now exists to import print standards directly from an ICC profile (in addition to importing from Chroma Standards, PantoneLive or GMG OpenColor). CIELab values and TVI curves can be imported. ICC v2 and v4 are supported, as well as CMYK and multichannel profiles.

Customised drawdown reports can now be created in Chroma Standards with just a few clicks, printed or saved as PDF to easily share with end customers.

 When accessing PantoneLive colors in Chroma Standards, there is now the ability to select your illuminant/observer combination. Once set, ChromaQA will target the CIELab values for the illuminant/observer combination you selected while taking samples.

Substrate Opacity is now a new metric available in Chroma Press. Turn it on when creating a colour bar and set the aim opacity value and tolerance in the template; press operators then must measure over white and black and the opacity will be displayed and attached to the job results.

Multiple ScoreCards can now be created and customised for the different scoring requirements (for example, in-house scoring, GMI, brand specific) using Chroma Admin. Additionally, a new feature allows to set upper limit thresholds that no single colour can exceed. This new feature provides greater flexibility, helping to detect problems immediately that might otherwise be hidden by only using averaged values.

A new ability to disable colours from standard colour bars has been introduced. This allows the user to work with fewer colour bar layouts.

You can now also import a Colibri colorant set and ChromaQA will automatically create a colorant set for use within SmartInk, saving time and eliminating the need to create new drawdowns.

SpectroCheck now supports a report displaying reference values, measured values and delta e values after calibrating the device. This additional documentation is helpful for ISO compliance.