Written by Geert de Proost
Director, Software Product Offering – Converters, Esko
If you talk to brand owners about colour, the conversation comes alive with passion and conviction.
That’s no surprise. Colour binds consumers to products, drives instant shelf recognition, and acts as a signal of quality.
A lot is placed on colour’s shoulders.
Get it right and loyalty compounds. Get it wrong and the work of marketing, design and innovation is undone in the half-second it takes a shopper to walk past.
And yet in packaging production, colour remains one of the most fragmented parts of the workflow.
It crosses brand teams, agencies, premedia, prepress, the ink kitchen, and the pressroom – each with their own tools, references, and sometimes definition of ‘correct’.
When it goes wrong, the knee-jerk reaction is that something went wrong at the press. Which is logical, because that’s often where issues surface. However, colour is decided, and quietly compromised, long before any plate is made.
Every handoff either preserves intent or erodes it, and every handoff is where efficiency is won or lost.
Tighter Specs, Faster Timelines, More Variability
Colour is defined in design at the brand and travels with the file across the supply chain. The press is the end point, not the origin.
At the same time, brand expectations have hardened. The colour they approve should be the colour that prints, irrespective of who prints it.
Sustainability requirements – from PCR content over thinner films and lower-impact inks – should not reset the clock, even though they change the substrate and the way ink behaves on it.
That pressure lands squarely on the converter, who is dealing with far more than colour alone:
- Files arrive late and change more than once.
- Print runs are shorter, so there is less press time to dial it in by experience.
- Operational flexibility across flexo, digital, offset and multiple sites only works if colour is portable
- Skilled resources are harder to find. The veteran operator who could read a sheet by eye is increasingly rare.
- The buying conversation now starts with throughput, onboarding speed, reduced dependency on specialists, and less waste.
The opportunity is to stop treating colour and efficiency as competing priorities.
Why Colour Cannot Operate in Silos
Colour does not happen in one place. It happens everywhere, and everyone touches it:
- Proofing simulates the outcome.
- Retouchers manipulate separations.
- Screening and imaging define what is achievable.
- Post-press processes — lamination, varnish and finishing — shift the result again.
The problem is rarely one individual step. The problem is that these steps often operate in silos, each with different data, assumptions and definitions of “correct.”
If even one link in the chain works to a different standard, deviation is almost inevitable.
And the solution is not another isolated measurement tool layered onto the process. The solution is connecting the process itself.
A single source of colour truth — spot definitions, profiles, dot-gain resources and ink specifications — needs to flow through the places where colour decisions are actually made: planning, preflight, prepress, imaging, screening, approval and reporting.
Measurement tells you where colour is. An integrated workflow determines what happens next, and carries that decision consistently across teams, sites and presses.
Portability is the Real Test
Portability is where colour strategies are truly tested.
If a job moves from flexo to digital, from one press to another, or from one production site to the next, colour intent should move with it. Teams should not need to rebuild profiles from scratch or depend on one experienced operator who “knows the press.”
That is where print behaviour capture and process-to-process matching become critical. They make operational flexibility practical:
- Faster onboarding
- Fewer iterations
- Less press-side correction
- Lower operational risk when schedules shift
The same principle applies to inks.
Extended-gamut approaches such as Esko Equinox reduce dependence on large spot-colour libraries by creating a more predictable, repeatable colour system across jobs and sites.
The immediate benefit is colour consistency. But the larger impact is operational:
- Fewer inks
- Fewer washups
- Fewer changeovers
- Less waste
- Lower energy consumption
As sustainability regulations tighten globally, those efficiency gains become environmental benefits and commercial advantages.
Close the Loop: Put the Brand Inside the Workflow
The final step is closing the loop between specification, production, and performance.
When a brand approves a colour, they are approving intent. They need confidence that intent will carry through to the printed result.
Closed-loop approaches help connect those stages. For example, internal and customer approvals in Esko WebCenter can be linked to production colour data and automated validation, returning pressroom results back to the teams who defined the target.
That creates visibility across sites and suppliers:
- Brands gain confidence without relying on constant press checks
- Converters see deviations early, before they become complaints
- Quality discussions become data-driven instead of subjective
This is traceability from specification to shelf, with insight early enough to act on it. And that is really the shift taking place across packaging production.
Ten years ago, controlling colour meant choosing the right proofing device. Today, it means connecting brand, premedia, prepress and press into one coordinated workflow that spans teams, sites, and partners.
Problems surface earlier, where they are cheaper to solve. Discussions become data instead of disputes. And colour quality, speed-to-market and operational efficiency stop operating as separate priorities.
In a previous blog on Esko’s S2 platform, I mentioned that colour is a foundational layer within connected packaging workflows. That is where the value emerges. Not from colour in isolation, but from colour operating as part of a connected production ecosystem.
The Business Case is Bigger Than Better Colour
Here is the real tension.
Colour specialists focus on reducing the final fractions of deviation between proof and press. That expertise still matters enormously.
But business leaders increasingly see a larger opportunity.
The value is not just better colour. It is:
- Faster production cycles because handoffs and re-keying disappear
- Fewer iterations because everyone works from the same standards
- Lower rejection rates because approved intent matches printed output
- Greater flexibility across sites and print processes
- Smoother sustainability transitions because substrate and ink dependencies are identified upstream, not discovered at press-side
When colour travels with the file — and the file moves through a connected workflow — quality, speed, economics and sustainability stop competing with each other.
They begin reinforcing each other.
