Alexandria, VA, August 11, 2008.  IDEAlliance today announced that it has launched a new website to provide G7 information and news for the growing G7 community around the world.  The new website contains a new Q&A as well as new materials about the ISO inks that are recommended for implementing G7 on sheetfed offset presses.

Background

The development of G7 was prompted by print buyers who were frustrated by proofs and prints that had matching dot gain but clear visual differences.  Print buyers asked for metrics that more closely relate to the visual appearance of a printed image.  For buyers it is critical that there is a visual appearance similarity of no matter where their work was printed across the globe or on any kind print device.  Their goal was to achieve a similar visual appearance for their marketing collateral, magazine and newspaper ads, packaging and signage.  G7 provided the new metrics of neutrality and tonality upon which a similar visual appearance can be based.

The basics of G7 were developed by its inventor Don Hutcheson, Hutchcolor LLC.  Hutcheson granted to IDEAlliance intellectual property rights, free-of-charge, for all non-commercial purposes, including the right to publish IDEAlliance specifications based on this intellectual property, the right to develop and deliver training materials based on the IP, and the right to use the intellectual property as the basis for IDEAlliance programs.  Hutcheson and a team from the IDEAlliance GRACoL Committee refined the process controls defining visual similarity and G7 was first published as an IDEAlliance specification in 2007.  Today, because of its broad application beyond sheetfed offset printing, G7 is advanced and maintained by the IDEAlliance Print Properties and Colorimetrics Working Group.

www.g7global.org

Since G7 was initially developed by the IDEAlliance GRACoL Working Group, G7 materials have been posted on the GRACoL website.  As the volume of resources about G7 grew, it became difficult to sort out G7 materials from materials specific to GRACoL.  In addition the co-location of G7 with GRACoL lead to the commonly held misconception that G7 is the same as GRACoL.

The new G7 website is designed to provide information to the G7 community in an easy to access manner.  There are answers to the most commonly asked questions when you click "About G7".  IDEAlliance, working with NAPIM (North American Printer Ink Manufacturers Association), has posted a description of the ISO 2846 and information about how printers can verify that their inks are ISO compliant.  A number of recorded webinars about G7 are freely available on the new website including "The G7 Update," "G7 for Flexo, Web, Gravure and Beyond" and a "G7 Case Study" presented by Son Do from Rods and Cones.  Upcoming events, such as the G7 Summit being held in New Orleans on September 15, will also be posted on the new site.

"If you have an interest in learning about G7 or have questions about G7, we hope you visit the new G7global website.  In a few months we will be adding collaborative capabilities to the G7 website and all IDEAlliance websites.  So our ability to answer questions and assist implementers will be enhanced even more," stated David Steinhardt, President of IDEAlliance.