ALEXANDRIA, VA (October 30, 2001) -- IDEAlliance, formerly the Graphic Communications Association (GCA), and GRACoL (General Requirements for Applications in Commercial Offset Lithography) have announced the confirmation of GRACoL Printing Guidelines for Grade #1 Premium Gloss Coated Sheets. This important step towards industry standards development is a result of the recent successful certified press run with inks conforming to IS0 2846 on a # 1 sheet at LAgraphico.com in Burbank, CA. The sheets that are measured and selected from this press run will represent the center point of commercial printing as defined in GRACoL. The selected press sheets will be submitted to CGATS (The Committee for Graphic Arts Technologies Standards) for official measurement and documentation to serve as a reference printing characterization for the entire printing industry. This effort towards industry standards was led by the GRACoL Press Test subcommittee under the direction of George Leyda, ColorInfo Technology, Inc.; Larry Warter, Fuji Film; and Dick Presley, Imation. Assisting committee members represented a broad gamut of the industry through the donation of expertise, time, and materials. Included were Al Shapiro, LAgraphico.com; Bill Jacot, LAgraphico.com; John Finnical, DuPont; Leigh Kimmelman, Shira; Gordon Pritchard, CreoScitex; Miles Southworth, RIT; Jim Brisendine, PBM Graphics; Scott Sell and Craig Narta, X-Rite; and David Hultin, IDEAlliance. GANS Ink supplied the ISO 2846 inks and KIRK XPEDX supplied the paper. What does this event mean for standards development for the industry? * Represents an industry-supported definition of commercial offset printing to be documented by CGATS as a representative condition. * Allows the development of a reference printing characterization Technical Report, like TR001, which in turn provides the use of this standard data for other processes such as proofing. * Establishes the GRACoL Printing Guidelines as challenging but printable specifications for #1 sheet. * Reduces time and material waste through industry accepted GRACoL aimpoints for all segments of print process workflow. Said Al Shapiro, President of LAgraphico.com, "There were eight criteria we needed to meet on this test, and it took us six months to get there to be able to hit the GRACoL numbers. Can anybody get there? Probably. Can they do it easily? No. If you are not printing well, you're not going to get there." George Leyda, President of ColorInfo Technology, Inc. and leader of the printing effort stated, "This characterization will provide the center point in numerical data (CIELab) for printing on a #1 coated sheet. This data can now be used by everyone in the workflow, from customer to printer as the common aim point. No more guessing or hedging your bet. It works for SWOP(TM), and it should work for commercial printers as well." David Steinhardt, President and CEO of IDEAlliance, said, "This exercise confirms that the target aims and guidelines detailed in the GRACoL Printing Guidelines Chart are representative of reasonable printing values, and will help to improve communication and quality while reducing waste in the print process. This has been a collaborative enterprise. It combined the expertise of a wide variety of disciplines, which is what IDEAlliance represents. We will continue to support such valuable efforts to benefit our members and the industry as well."