measure how much cover of each ink is on the page

If you’re constantly coming up short on a particular color during a long run, you’ll see costly consequences in the press time you lose while another batch is whipped up. Poor estimating works in the opposite direction, too. Not only do you have an expensive inventory that may rival your supplier’s, there’s no guarantee that you’ll find a use for those 13 extra gallons of hot pink Pantone 812 or other custom-color leftovers before the ink goes bad. 'Just leftovers from the jobs we’ve been running.' If this sounds like a visit to your own inkroom, then you’ve been paying the price for inaccurate ink estimating. 'Where did it all come from?' From behind a wall of half-full five-gallon containers pops the head of your ink technician. 'We have enough ink in here to cover Texas!' you cry. Hurdling a final stack, you push through the inkroom door and find yourself confronted with an even larger collection of containers filling every available inch of shelf space and stacked to the ceiling everywhere else. Ink buckets of every shape and size–none of them empty–litter the corridor. As you near the inkroom, however, your progress begins to slow. It’s inventory time, and with pen and notebook in hand, you set out for the ink department.

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Measure how much cover of each ink is on the page