The California-based start-up company, which was launched this month by chief executive Edward Granger and vice president, business development, John Sweeney, now plans to roll out similar products across the print industry.

Granger, who is a former distinguished professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology's (RIT) School of Printing, said that IQ Colour's approach to solving colour separation problems was "revolutionary".

"Our products will allow printers to produce better colour, faster, using less ink, thereby saving time, costs and resources – precious commodities in today's economic conditions," he said.

IQ Colour has built its software based on the popular assumption that adjusting editorial colour separations using grey component replacement and undercolor additions can improve overall colour quality and lower production costs.

The company expects users of its workflow products to use less colour and black ink, thereby achieving better consistency on press, shorter makeready times and faster drying times due to the thinner layer of ink.

Sweeney said: "Our first set of solutions are targeted towards the newspaper market, whose production workflow volume and cost constraints will immediately benefit from IQ Colour Tools.

"We are confident that their success with our products will help us position our company to continue to develop solutions addressing the needs of additional print markets."

According to the business' preliminary beta test results, significant reductions in ink cost and makeready times are achievable in both editorial RGB to CMYK, and CMYK to CMYK colour workflows for supplied advertising material.