Experts from across the printing industry collaborate to propel the industry forward in CMYK+OGV project.

Alexandria, Va. – The Idealliance Print Properties & Colorimetric Council Expanded Gamut Subcommittee has begun conducting expanded gamut press testing. The Expanded Gamut Subcommittee was started in the fall of 2017 and includes expert committee members from across the print community from around the world, including manufacturers, print experts, color scientists and a wide range of international printing sites.

Idealliance is a non-profit industry think tank with 12 strategically located offices around the world. It is recognized by ISO as the industry’s foremost certifying body for competencies, systems, materials, and facilities and the world’s foremost contributor to ISO standards.

The Idealliance Expanded Gamut project has four objectives:

• Develop a test chart intended for use with universal ECG printing (seven colors, CMYK+OGV). The chart is designed to be usable by most profiling software and contains an optimized patch set based on needs of leading industry software developers.
• Create a set of leading practices and a calibration method for use with seven color expanded gamut printing. These practices and methods will also be suitable for five and six color Expanded Gamut print. These methods will contain example aims for seven color printing.
• Create an Expanded Gamut Proofing Control Strip, based on a subset of the patches above.
• Create an example Expanded Gamut Characterization Dataset for use in everyday expanded gamut print.
  The committee is made up of leading developers, color scientists and international experts from across the print industry. The test chart subcommittee contains individuals from Color-Logic, Kodak, GMG, Esko, Heidelberg, Alwan, Agfa, Idealliance, industry leading consultants, and other graphics arts manufacturers.

“This has been an extraordinary global effort done through incredible collaboration,” says Idealliance CEO Tim Baechle. “This work is so important to the global industry that OEMs who normally compete with one another came together to work as a unified global task force to produce an ECG dataset, profile, and target that will propel this industry forward by leaps and bounds. Idealliance is so grateful for our global working groups and the work that is produced by the most extraordinary companies and individuals in the world.”

The second revision of the Expanded Gamut test chart is currently being tested with a series of live press runs. Once the test chart is complete, the committee will move on to a series of 20 controlled test runs, which will be conducted across Idealliance’s 12 international offices on a variety of print processes and substrates. Final results, including the target, press measurements, and characterization data will be shared with the international community. “Much of the work done by Idealliance, as a think tank, such as specifications, targets, profiles, datasets and standards are produced to launch our industry greatly forward, well into the future, and build a bridge across the world. This work is produced for free and given away to the industry as Idealliance is in the business of serving and building bridge across the world and leading the industry into the future-which includes all print technologies and everyone working in this great industry and those entering our industry,” says Timothy Baechle CEO of Idealliance.

The Expanded Gamut CMYK+OGV project is the second phase of Idealliance’s Expanded Gamut project. The first phase produced the XCMYK characterization dataset, which is widely used by offset, digital and wide format, greatly increasing the color gamut of products produced using this dataset.

To learn how you can become involved in the Idealliance Expanded Gamut project, contact Ron Ellis, Print Properties & Colorimetric Council Chair, at [email protected] or Timothy Baechle, CEO Idealliance at [email protected].