New Report Explores Printing Beyond Colour

Many technologies and features with their roots in commercial printing have made, and continue to make, a substantial contribution to secure document production. However, these technologies have for the most part been concerned with producing visual colours, perceived by the unaided eye as conventional colour printing.

A new technology report – ‘Printing Beyond Colour: Commercial Innovation for Security Print’ – examines the latest generation inks and digital printing techniques that venture beyond visual colour into a domain filled with the potential to generate a whole new set of features for secure documents.

However, with this potential come threats. Given that the technologies and features used for commercial printing are often widely available,

they are in danger of ending up in the hands of counterfeiters, thereby posing a real threat to secure documents. This report therefore examines these threats, in order to provide a balanced and pragmatic technical review of current developments.

The report includes in-depth technical analyses of a range of dispensing technologies with the potential to create novel printed features beyond colour. These include features viewed in ultraviolet and infrared light, optically variable features, features that interact with the substrate, 3D-printed features, and printed electronics.

The author of this new report is Dr Alan Hodgson, consultant in printing and imaging technologies, and a regular contributor to Tax Stamp & Traceability News™.

‘Printing Beyond Colour: Commercial Innovation for Security Print’ is targeted at companies that provide security printing and authentication solutions to the currency, ID, tax stamp and brand protection sectors. The report provides an informative technical analysis of what is coming out of the commercial printing arena and how this could be adapted and applied to the security world.

The report is published by Reconnaissance International and available to purchase from https://estore.reconnaissance.net/product/printing-beyond-colour/.