SPECTRUM 2001 CONFERENCE NOTES

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Standards Update: SNAP, GRACoL, SWOP

Moderated By:

George Leyda
President
ColorInfo Technology

George explained that standards are built within standards organizations by groups such as the Committee for Graphic Arts Technical Standardization (CGATS), which have representatives from the many industry associations that represent printers, publishers, prepress services, advertising agencies, and so forth. Although a few users do directly participate in standards activities, many cannot afford direct representation in standards activities, but it is through the industry associations that they are represented.

Michael A. Rodriguez, Technical Director at RR Donnelley & Sons provided an overview of SWOP 2001, 9th edition. The current issue provides a new focus on CTP, file formats, and color management using CGATS Technical Report 001. Most importantly, SWOP 2001 introduced a certification program for SWOP proofing systems. The SWOP certification program is for systems, not proofs: an individual proof is never certified as being "SWOP compliant," but rather certification indicates the capability of a system to produce proofs to SWOP specifications, as per the vendors own application data sheet, given proper operation.

In the area of color management, color management enables proofs to match the press, but we cannot hope to openly exchange proofs that match every press, so a standard color characterization is necessary to make open color exchange work. CGATS TR 001 provides a color characterization, based upon a reference press run made to idealized SWOP specifications that provides an "anchor" that input from prepress can be related to, and to which output to individual printing press properties can also be related to; hence, a many-to-one/one-to-many open system is created. Adobe Photoshop 6.0 now has "US Web Coated SWOP Profile 2" which is based upon CGATS TR001.

Larry Steele, Technical Director of RGB Metrology, spoke about the relationship between SNAP (Specifications for Newspaper Advertising Production) and GRACoL (General Requirements for Appli-cations of Commercial offset Lithography) each have recently under gone major revisions. GRACoL 5.0 now includes printing guidelines for ten paper types. The Magazine Association of Canada (MAC) has adopted almost all of the SWOP specifications, and also have their digital variant, "dMACS."

All these groups and the standards groups are working towards a common graphic arts vision in which reference printing conditions based upon SNAP, GRACoL and SWOP, will be created and pro-vided for color management application, as has already been done for SWOP with CGATS TR 001. Each reference condition includes information on the color of the inks used, the paper properties, and press conditions, and then provides the measured averaged values of individual printed target patches off of the IT8 Standard Color Image Data target set. Here are the new and future technical reports:

Barbara Hanapole, Executive Director of the DDAP Association, discussed the future of DDAP pro-grams. DDAP is now working to promote the adoption and use of PDF/X. In the March 13th, 2000 the first PDF/X1 ad was printed by Bayer in a Time magazine ad. This year DDAP sponsored two PDF/X developers' summits, and their objective is to keep pushing until making PDF/X files is as easy as a "save as" option in common layout applications such as Quark XPress or Adobe's InDesign.

The DDAP PPD project has defined a printer definition to standardize PostScript workflows. There is also the DDAP "Digital Delivers" project which provides a "how to" approach for setting up jobs on a CD-ROM for user reference. Finally, DDAP is also building a Digital Ad Database that provides a comprehensive list of suppliers, who have shown that they can deliver standard file format files (e.g., TIFF/IT and PDF/X.) These suppliers are "validated" using file-checking software for PDF/X and TIFF/IT file formats that has been developed by DDAP and which are available to the public. These tools and "members-only" services such as a DDAP forum are available at www.ddap.org.

Larry Warter, New Business Development Director at Fuji Photo Film USA, discussed how all the associations "fit together." There are three areas of standards: Control, Calibration, and Connection. CGATS and ISO have done a lot of work on controlling ink, plate, and other material properties. These groups have also provided control specifications for measurement and quality control. ISO has pro-vided calibration standards, including the afore mentioned IT8 7/3 and SCID images, as well as ISO printing process for offset, newsprint, flexo, screen printing, and gravure printing. Furthermore, ISO provides calibration specifications for standard viewing conditions. SWOP, in the 2001 edition, also has begun to provide calibration standards through its certification program. The reference printing conditions in SNAP, GRACoL, and SWOP, as mentioned by Larry Steele, provide the reference print conditions that calibration standards must reference.

There is discussion or investigation of putting together an umbrella organization that is a member-ship organization that include all of these groups, including CGATS, SWOP, SNAP, and GRACoL, to provide one place to go. This may even include combining all of their intellectual property under the single entity.

As for connectivity, there are many diverse groups as well. The ICC is working on making the color management process more reliable. A graphic arts color management process is being defined that meets the needs of the professional printing and publishing communities. CGATS and ISO con-tinue to develop PDF/X standards for different types of file exchange; including partial or OPI/APR based file exchange. There are also newer efforts that are focusing on "smart data," such as: JDF, UDEX, and VDX/PODI.

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