These are great questions and the answers may be related to what is called:

Ink Burnout, Chemical Burn, or UV Burn.

In this issue let me give you the WHO WHAT WHY WHEN and HOW's about Burnout, like...

WHO DOES THIS HAPPEN TO AND WHAT KINDS OF PROJECTS? Some of my clients projects have suffered some consequences of ink burnout depending on the PMS colors they chose to use, the percentages, and if they then added either aqueous, UV or lamination.

WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? (Well, I needed a 'What' for my story...)

WHY DO SOME PMS COLORS FADE BUT OTHERS KEEP THEIR HUE? Recently during the bidding stage of a project, I asked a client whether we needed to match any paper types or PMS ink colors to other family pieces. The client said 'No'. While we were on press however, they brought in a prior piece from another printer, and we found that some of the PMS ink colors DID NOT match the PMS book. Nor did they match the piece we were now running, which DID match the PMS book. Their past family piece had burned out significantly.

The client decided to have us go ahead and match that previously printed piece, so we used the same paper, ink, and aqueous coating. Although the new piece differs from the company color palette and the PMS book, now all related family pieces match each other.

WHEN DOES INK BURNOUT HAPPEN? Burnout occurs when certain PMS colors are exposed to chemicals, called amines, in aqueous or UV coatings. All PMS colors are made up of a combination of base colors, and those 15 base colors make up all the colors in the entire PMS book.

WHICH 7 OF THE 15 BASE COLORS ARE MOST LIKELY TO BE AFFECTED AND PRONE TO BURNOUT? The 7 colors are Warm Red, Rhodamine Red, 032 Red, Reflex Blue, Violet, Purple, and 072 Blue.

HOW DO I PREVENT BURNOUT FROM HAPPENING? On aqueous or UV-coated jobs, you can use an HP (high performance) ink. In some cases, HP colors can appear dirtier, weaker, and flatter in hue than normal PMS colors. The difference is due to the specialized pigments that are used to make the ink resistant to burnout. (The HP inks that contain more Pantone Black base color match PMS colors better than those that contain more Transparent White base color.) To get an idea of how much color variation could occur in the inks you want to use, you can request an ink drawdown prior to your piece running on press.

WHAT I NEED TO REMEMBER... (Snuck another one in for you here) It is very important to remember the 7 prone base colors. If your PMS chosen colors contain any of those 7, and you want to match family pieces - be sure to take note of the percentages of these colors and the type of coating you use. It could mean the difference between completing a very successful project and having one where family piece colors don't match.

HOW CAN I LEARN MORE? - FROM TK OF COURSE! If you would like to learn more about ink burnout, if you have any questions or concerns, or you would like to see the burnout samples, please contact me at tkbuinski@sextonprinting.com or call me at 612-278-1568.

If you have a production issue not discussed within this issue that you would like me to address, a project that needs to be looked at or more information about Sexton's capabilities, you can: give me a call at (651)-255-1225; check out the other issues of TK's Korners or visit Sexton's web site @ www.sextonprinting.com.I look forward to our next opportunity together.

You may also want to see the following TK's Korner issues -

Branding - 22 Laws Of
Brand Warfare
Creative Coatings Techniques
Digital / Variable Printing
Duotones-Tritones-Quadtones
FSC Certification
Ink Tour
Paper Mill Tour - Coated
Paper Mill Tour - Uncoated
Picking the Right Paper
Press Check Tips
Why Work With TK?