Fogra is currently working with great commitment on modernising ISO 12647 and adapting it to current environmental conditions.
Important innovations of the reformed ISO 12647 will be:
- Innovations regarding paper types (PT)
- New tone value increases
- For proofing: New papers with optical brighteners
Why is ISO 12647 being revised? Environmental conditions have changed significantly at three central points since the last revision in 2004.
Papertypes
The previous paper types 3 and 5 with the paper whites defined in 2004 are hardly available on the market today. Even picture printing papers today show a much stronger blue colouration than just a few years ago. In addition, the revision of D50 in 2009 means that the lighting in the pressrooms now also contains considerably more UV than before 2009, which has caused problems in the matching of proofs without optical brighteners compared to papers with a high proportion of brighteners. Instead of the previous 5 paper types, there will probably now be 8 new paper types which also differentiate between glossy and matte picture printing paper:
- PT1: Coated picture printing paper (Premium coated)
- PT2: Brightened, coated picture printing paper (Improved coated)
- PT3: Glossy coated magazine paper (Standard coated glossy)
- PT4: Matte coated magazine paper (standard coated mat)
- PT5: Wood free uncoated
- PT6: Supercalendered, uncoated
- PT7: Improved uncoated paper
- PT8: Standard uncoated
Based on these eight types of paper, a total of 16 printing conditions are created by using frequency modulated non-periodic screening and conventional periodic screening.
But not only the paper types are being adapted to the new era: The dot gain curves will also be adapted to the new conditions. The filmless printing plate production that is common today results in a higher dot gain in the bright highlights than before. Therefore, new dot gain curves have been defined that are now also valid for all colours of a printing condition. For black and cyan, magenta and yellow the same increase curves now apply for the same printing condition. Current investigations show that the black ink does not really print ” richer ” than the chromatic colors.
The revised ISO 12647 will also contain innovations for proofing. As Fogra writes, “Papers with a high proportion of optical brighteners can only be simulated with test printing substrates […] that also contain optical brighteners. A metrological equality also looks the same to the eye, according to Fogra’s conclusion, if the UV components of colour measurement and colour matching are identical. The investigations for the softproof have not yet been completed.
A new generation of colour measuring devices is entering the market: in contrast to the classic measuring devices, which are available as a fully encapsulated system either as a colourimeter or as a spectrophotometer, and then supply the data to a computer via an interface or app or display it directly, the new generation of colour measuring devices consist only of lighting and software, with the optics of a modern iPhone from Apple being used as the sensor. Until now, there have been two categories of measuring devices on the … read more
From now on you can order proofs for metal decor printing on white sheet metal at proof.de: The ICC profile for Fogra60 is Metal-Printing_MPC1_FOGRA60.icc
Peter Jäger is an expert in colour management that reliably works across the boundaries of printers and monitors, web and print – essentially: cross-media.
Offset and Newsprint ISO Coated v2 (ECI) / ISO Coated v2 300% (ECI) Profile: ISOcoated_v2_eci.icc Standard for glossy and matte coated paper Paper: Types 1 and 2, gloss and matte coated Tone value increase curves A (CMY) and B (K) as defined in ISO 12647-2:2004 Characterisation Data: FOGRA39L ISOUncoated Profile: ISOUncoated.icc Standard for uncoated white natural paper Paper: paper grade 4, uncoated white offset, dot gain curves C (CMY) and D (K) from ISO 12647-2: 2004 Characterisation Data: FOGRA29L PSOCoatedV3 / Fogra 51 Profile: PSOcoated_v3.icc The successor of ISOCoatedV2 for glossy … read more
Over the last few months, we at Proof.de have been thinking about further improving our already very good colour measurement technology in terms of speed and measurement precision. Relatively quickly it became clear that only two devices would come into question: The KonicaMinolta MYIRO-9, the successor of the former FD-9, or the X-Rite ISIS 2 XL. The starting point: Since we at Proof GmbH have 5 proofing devices, the calibration of targets for profile optimisation is a time-critical undertaking for us. Therefore, we had been looking around for an upgrade of … read more
A few days ago Proof GmbH was the first company to be certified for proofing for the new 7C exchange colour space FOGRA55. Fogra has developed characterisation data for extended multicolour printing with the printing colours CMYKOGV – i.e. cyan, magenta, yellow, black (contrast), orange, green and violet – FOGRA55 as part of a research project over the past few years. The characterisation data and the ICC profile Ref-ECG-CMYKOGV_FOGRA55_TAC300.icc have been published on the Fogra website in recent weeks. We have now carried out the certification via GMG ColorProof, as … read more
RGB colour spaces are colour systems that represent different hues with the three primary colours red, green and blue. RGB colour spaces are used in digital image processing, photography and computer technology to precisely define colours. The most important RGB colour spaces and their special features are: sRGB sRGB is the most widely used RGB colour space and is used by most monitors, printers and digital cameras. It was developed by HP and Microsoft in the 1990s to create a standard for colour representation on the internet and on various … read more
In 2021 proof.de was again Fogra certified including Fogra “Spot cert” certification, i.e. for the display of spot colours such as PANTONE C and U.
In recent years, various problems have arisen with our previous proof paper supplier. On the one hand, we sometimes had to wait more than three months for paper deliveries; on the other hand, we sometimes had significant problems with batch-to-batch discrepancies, surface defects and much more. After lengthy deliberations, we decided in December to replace all the paper. We therefore received pallets of new paper at the turn of the year, which we are now gradually incorporating into our production. There will be no hard cut, but the new papers … read more
Today I received an email in which PANTONE asked how it should orientate its products and services in the future. The users were asked which countries, industries and company sizes they come from, but also what PANTONE products should look like in the future and what customers would be prepared to pay for PANTONE services in the future. Question: How much can PANTONE services cost? PANTONE appears to be orientating itself on the PANTONE Connect prices: All price queries have the lowest price category < $ 7,- / month, i.e. … read more