Flint Ink has announced that it is to use the Internet to reduce the time spent on colour matching and replication.

The company is inviting its clients to e-mail spectrophotometric properties of a required colour to them, which will then be formulated, approved and then produced. The software - Globalink - has been developed by X-Rite, and allows for on-screen colour matching.

Flint Inks best match is sent back to the customer as a graphical comparison and on-screen comparison. Flit Ink director of new technologies, Les Watkins, said that the new on-line service will accelerate the colour matching process by eliminating the time-consuming delivery of hard copy samples.

Once the colour is approved on-line by the originator, the formula is passed on to one of the companys manufacturers, who mix the ink to within 0.1g accuracy. This first actual mix of the ink is then tested again with the on-line data before production goes ahead. Watkins said that the advantage of Globalink was that it allowed the companys colour matching technologies to stretch beyond geographical boundaries: An ad agency in Germany could create a colour and we can get an approved colour match, transmit the data around the world, and then manufacture it anywhere around the world.