Color management blogs.

For every label printer, managing color is a critical part of the operation. If you can't reproduce color accurately and consistently then you will not stay in business very long. Color management is a very broad topic so I have tried to present a cross section of blogs here for review.

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Jim Raffel (http://jimraffel.com/)

Jim Raffel's blog is "a printing industry blog focusing on color measurement, printing, ink, paper, spectrophotometers and densitometers." It is an established blog with almost three years of history on a variety of topics involving color management. He discusses industry conferences, color measurement issues, color calibration, dot gain, and color profiling. This blog is not for the inexperienced. Often there are very technical discussions such as the recent post about metamerism and the spectral response differences between a hard copy proof and a monitor. Jim's company, Colormetrix Technology, provides color measurement software. If you love color, and understand the technical side of color management, then this blog is for you.

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COLOURlovers (http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/)

The COLOURlovers blog is at the opposite end of the color management spectrum, so to speak. This blog does not focus just on the use of color in the print industry, but also on modern art, fashion, and even nature. In fact, the most popular blog post is about butterflies and the rich colors of some butterfly wings. But the purpose of this post is not just to look at beautiful photos of butterflies; it is to analyze what colors the natural world combines together, in order to create new and interesting color combinations. This blog is aimed at graphic designers and artists, people who are creating the labels and packaging for your customers.

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Watts Digital Imaging Blog (http://www.wattsdigital.com/blog1/)

This blog by John Watts, a 25-year digital imaging veteran, focuses on color management of monitors and desktop printers. If you want to find out how to calibrate your monitor and do a color match with your printer, this blog will describe what you need to do. In fact, his company, Watts Digital, sells tools on their web site to do just that. But this blog is not an advertisement for his company, there is some really useful content here. Watts is also an Adobe Photoshop expert so there are many posts about the color management tools within Photoshop. A recent post described a better way to sharpen your image in Photoshop by creating a new background layer. For those of us who are not color management experts but want to gain some practical knowledge on this topic, you will learn a great deal by reading this blog.

Color Pro (http://www.sensationalcolor.com/colorpro/)

The Color Pro blog is part of the family of blogs created by Kate Smith and her company, Sensational Color. The tagline for the Color Pro blog is "color insights for your business--brands, products, packaging--plus the latest color trends, design influences and innovation." This blog is not focused on the technical side of color management, but like the COLOURlovers blog, it analyzes trends in the use of color. Recent posts have discussed color trends in different countries such as India and China--two countries that are in the news a lot these days.

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IT Enquirer (http://www.it-enquirer.com/)

While not technically a blog, IT Enquirer is an online e-zine that is full of excellent technical information on color management, desktop publishing and graphic design. Like most blogs, it is available via an RSS feed so I am reviewing it here. Written by European journalist, Erik Vlietinck, IT Enquirer has a wealth of free information as well as research reports and training programs that are available only to paid subscribers. A recent article provided an in-depth analysis of EskoArtwork's workflow automation tools for commercial printers. The site is conveniently divided into subcategories with buttons across the top of the page: Color, DTP Workflow, Graphic Design, Web Publishing, Audio Visual and Print Publishing.

I also want to give a brief mention to a new blog, ColorGeek (http://www.colorgeek2.com/blog/). It was launched only in January of this year and there have been only a handful of posts, so it is too early to tell whether or not this blog will become a useful resource. It is authored by a couple of very experienced color management experts so it certainly has potential.

Peter Renton is the founder of Lightning Labels, Inc., an all-digital label printer in Denver, CO, USA. He is also the coauthor of the company's blog at blog.lightninglabels.com.