Esko Equinox completes Athena Graphics’ Advanced Prepress solution

Improved quality and increased production with excellent color conversion

Ghent (Belgium), 15 March 2018 – Belgium based high quality prepress specialist Athena Graphics adds Esko Equinox to its portfolio to complete their Advanced Prepress workflow, an innovative end-to-end solution for brand owners and packaging printers. Esko Equinox creates color conversions for extended gamut printing and eliminates the need for spot colors, making production faster, more efficient, cost effective and reliable.

With their Advanced Prepress solution, Athena Graphics provides an answer to the increasing demand for shorter runs and shorter time to market production. Kenneth Hostyn, Technical Project Manager at Athena Graphics says that the need for more efficient production is a clear trend in the packaging market. Hostyn: “Packaging printers and brand owners have become used to digital print, which uses a fixed set of printing colors. With our Advanced Prepress technology we can obtain the same and even better quality by using process colors instead of spot colors. By converting spot colors into process colors, our customers can increase their production speed and even improve their quality.”

Esko Equinox can convert almost any spot color into 4 to 7 process colors. By working with a fixed set of inks the printer reduces downtime of the presses, reduces wash-ups, saves inks (since he does not have to change inks anymore) and optimizes production time. Hostyn: “Our Advanced Prepress concept uses the latest technologies. Combined with the modern presses of our customers and our high-tech platemaking, quality is no longer an issue when using process colors. Moreover, it creates a stable production environment. It is now possible to produce prints that exactly match the proof.”

There are several reasons why Athena Graphics chose Equinox. Hostyn: “Esko has an extended knowledge base when it comes to color. The people of Esko are very familiar with the processes at the print companies. The development of Esko Equinox is based on years of experience and research and development. One of the most important reasons to choose Equinox is the ability to automate color conversions. By automating the process we eliminate human errors and we can optimize production. Esko Equinox perfectly closes the gap with outstanding color conversion. It was just the tool we were looking for.”

About Athena Graphics

Athena Graphics is one of the most prestigious and dynamic prepress companies in Europe, with more than 100 employees and establishments in three countries: Belgium, France and The Netherlands. They deliver high-quality prepress, printing forms and online services to the entire packaging chain in order to reduce the time-to-market. They achieve this by investing in people and technology, leading every day to innovation, optimization and automation in the packaging supply chain. Athena Graphics has a broad customer base that includes brand owners in many diverse sectors ranging from the food industry to pharmaceuticals. www.athena-graphics.be