Clifton, NJ - Sandy Alexander, the largest independently owned high-end commercial printing company in the country, in cooperation with the GRACoL Committee of IDEAlliance and CGATS (The Committee on Graphic Arts Technical Standards), announced the successful completion of print testing for GRACoL’s DTR004 standards. The actual print test was initiated by the Manhattan Project, a consortium of printing companies, pre-press providers and New York area advertising agencies, of which Sandy Alexander is a participant, that are dedicated to implementing color management and adopting universal “reference standards” for high-end commercial printing. Members from both the GRACoL committee and the Manhattan Project were present at Sandy Alexander for the two day effort which involved referenced color measurements, press process control, and printing to the exacting conditions required of a formal attempt to print a characterized printing condition. All participants were extremely enthusiastic with the results. Michael Graff, senior executive vice president at Sandy Alexander, who has spearheaded the company’s color management efforts commented, “We are pleased to be a part of this effort and to do our part to further the advancement of science and process control in the printing industry. Sandy Alexander has long been committed to working on behalf of the entire print industry in order to ensure that we are able to meet the demanding requirements of our clients.” Press sheets from the Sandy Alexander print run will be used to augment the GRACoL Kits distributed by the IPA for industry participants to use as reference for matching GRACoL. The actual measurement results will be incorporated into the next revision of the CGATS Technical Reports that defines the characterized printing conditions for commercial offset printing. Larry Steele of RGB Metrology conducted the press side measurements for GRACoL and said that the initial results indicated that this was a truly representative GRACoL press run close to the center of conditions. “This was also one of the more consistent printing conditions that we have experienced both throughout the sheet and from run to run” said Larry Warter of the GRACoL Committee. Don Hutcheson of the Manhattan Project added “the approach used to create the plates produced very smooth curves that should be ideal to facilitate future color managed printing under production conditions”. For additional information, contact Don Hutcheson ([email protected].)