For many people, color management is like the weather. Everyone talks about it, but no one ever does anything about it. But new machines with new ink sets are turning what was always a tricky issue into an even trickier one.

For many printers, “color management” is more or less synonymous with GRACoL, SWOP, or FOGRA. GRACoL, which stands for “General Requirements for Applications in Commercial offset Lithography,” was developed in 1966, and—long story short—is a standard specification for color reproduction. More recent versions of GRACoL are based on the popular G7 specifications. (SWOP stands for “Specifications for Web Offset Publications,” while FOGRA was developed by Germany’s Fogra Graphic Technology Research Association and is primarily used in Europe.)

Reading these basic descriptions, you can see the problem: these color specification standards were developed for lithographic printing, in particular four-color litho. That’s all well and good if you have an offset press. But today’s wide-format printers—and even digital small-format machines—print more than four colors. In fact, most printer manufacturers strongly tout the expanded gamut that their machines are capable of printing.