May 12, 2003 --- The International Color Consortium, meeting recently in Barcelona, Spain, has taken steps both to broaden participation in the development of its color management strategies and to gain international recognition for its most recent specification. The ICC specification, in the version 4.0 approved in 2002, provides a mechanism for equipment manufacturers, software developers, printers, designers, prepress specialists and others involved in graphic communications and related fields to assure that color is clearly defined and uniformly reproduced. ICC has launched an effort to secure recognition of Version 4.1 as an international standard through the International Organization for Standardization’s Technical Committee 130, Graphic Technology. As part of this effort, an ICC working group is reviewing formatting and other differences between the specification and the ISO requirements and will circulate a proposed document in the near future to harmonize the ICC and ISO formats. "ICC has tackled one of the most pressing and complex challenges in printing and related industries today and devised a highly effective and actionable specification," says ICC Chairman Lars Borg of Adobe Systems. "It is highly appropriate that this specification should reach a global constituency through the medium of ISO, since effective standardization is one of the keys to our industry’s continued success." ICC also continued its effort to broaden the range of inputs it gathers in the refinement of the specification. In Barcelona, the Consortium voted to invite a larger number of knowledgeable technology users and industry consultants to participate in future meetings. "Many individuals, although not formally affiliated with an ICC member organization, could bring us very significant new resources of knowledge and experience," Borg commented, "and future versions of the ICC specification will be stronger for their participation in the process." At previous meetings, ICC had identified a list of specific problems encountered by users in trying to implement color management using the ICC specification. In Barcelona, the Consortium evaluated this list in detail, and members assigned each of the identified problems a priority ranking. ICC’s Graphic Arts Special Interest Working Group will use this prioritized ranking to guide its future input into the specification, and ICC will rely on it in addressing communications and educational needs surrounding the acceptance of ICC color management in the graphic communications industry.