ECI Meeting 20.06.2008 - Meeting minutes

Location: BVDM, Wiesbaden · Meeting Minutes by Roland Thees

Attendants:

  • Florian Süßl
  • Karl Michael Meinecke
  • George Battrick
  • Klaus-Hermann Otto
  • Elie Khoury
  • Erwin Widmer
  • Hanno Hoffstadt
  • Roland Thees
  • Eva Maria Löffler
  • Sophia Hengst
  • Dietmar Wüller
  • Jörg Schober
  • Tobias Rausch
  • Olaf Drümmer

1. Welcome by Karl Michael Meinecke

2. Changes in membership:

Tobias Rausch as X-Rite Product Manager steps in for Liane May (beta and field testing). Personal membership was approved as ECI member.

Discussion whether to do a liaison with Yves Roussange, working as consultant in Australia to support and to spread color management down under. Elie wants to check for his creditability in the australian market. ECI ist not ready to make a decisison today, will be discussed in the next meeting. In the meantime he gets updated about the ongoing ECI development. Agreement on that, Olaf Drümmer will explain the situation to Yves.

3. Intellectual property rights issues

New profiles have to have different naming styles as a request of ISO. Olaf mentioned as new name PSO (Process standard Offset) and PSN (Process standard Newspaper) and PSR (Process standard Rotogravure). ISO doesn't want their copyrights to be touched.

Altona test suite, image of girl, the model tells she owns the rights. Image was taken by Laudert in 1997. No contract, just a payed bill. Will be a legal issue, Olaf recommended to take care on such a situation in the future. Roman16 images include the contract + rules how to use as part of the documentation.

4. ECI Working Groups

WebOffset WG, Florian Süßl

  • 2 new printing conditions: MFC (machine finished coated) and SNP (standard newsprint paper), will be available end of June 2008
  • revisit the characteristics on LWC paper is required.

Offset Profile WG

some politically related problems between vendors in the WG. Selection between Heidelberg, colorlogic and basiccolor profiles, decision on colorlogic, in the profile the vendor will not be mentioned to avoid any specific promotion. MFC was already done and set before by Heidelberg Profiles, the SNP-profile was also generated with the Heidelberg solution because of colorlogic profile problems. Florian Süßl explained that the profile generator is not important, but a well prepared ICC profile.

Coating WG -> surface finishing, Hanno Hoffstadt.

first meeting in july 07: goals are reference profiles and guidelines how to deal with surface finishing. Meeting in december 07 to compare glossy/matte film-coated prints with film-coated proofs across various proofing systems. Identical surface appearance, color quality comparable to conventional proofs, therefore no indication for measurement problems with 45/0 geometry due to the film layer. Comparison between coated prints and unlaminated proofs. Still very good for glossy surface. For matte finishing there is no equivalent proofing substrate at the moment. While semimatte substrates seem acceptable, best - but awkward - solution is matte film coating. Reference profiles are not yet ready. Recommendations have been outlined at the Fogra CMS Symposium in february, but guidelines have to be written. Could be done at University of Wuppertal.

Gravure WG, George Battrick

Bernhard Schmidt from Prinovis can't attend because of a Union-meeting. For PSR new characterization data were required. Bigger Gamut in Green, grey balance closer to Offset, little reduction in Magenta because of gamut limitations of Epson proofers.

Digital Photography WG, D. Wüller

ECI-RGB v2: heated discussion in various mailing lists. No proven advantage of L* vs. gamma 1.8 or 2.2 for final output. But benefit of D50 white point is recognized. Technical specifications expected to be ready end of 2008.

5. ISO TC 130

Meeting in Paris spring 2008 Olaf Drümmer: standards must be substantial, not changed to often, implementation takes quite a while, 18 months is optimistic. Any standard must be clear and easy to understand. Florian recommended very emotionally, that there should not be minor changes in a standard, because then we'll loose a general standard. Elie wants some revisions. E. Widmer asks Olaf Drümmer to discuss the issues, not to interrupt discussions. Rewritten standards must be published in one big change, no mix up with existing ones, small amendments confuse. Furthermore discussion by e-mail. Agreement on that by voting.

Olaf reported from Paris: transparencies are a limitation for AFP at the moment, WG for variable data, use of PDF → PDF/VT. Structural mechanisms were defined, struggling to find conditions to make file processing faster. Based on PDF 1.7, maintained by ISO 32000 which is approved.

Tobias Rausch: X-Rite launched version 2 of the CxF exchange format for color data, container for color informations. Wants to introduce this as a new standard, will be provided as open source. White paper is available on the X-Rite website.

6. Working on the next PDF format in ISO

Working on the next PDF format, suggestions for ISO 32000-2 to be delivered as written draft until end of August 2008 to Olaf Drümmer, to be prepared for the october meeting in Beijing, later suggestions can only be discussed for -3 (probably some years later). Olaf recommends multiple output intents for documents, it is considered to have multiple output intents per page. E. Widmer is not really convinced from that idea. Olaf wants to introduce spectral data, but it might be to early for that.

7. ERA - George Battrick

check also www.era.eu.org, www.cm-pacspace.net

Packaging color space (PaC. space). Move from in-house to centralized Repro, so color management is required, talking at the moment only in CMYK, Proofs typically don't relate to the substrate. Every job has a defined workflow on the way to repro / cylinder engraver. No use of ISO coated because Rotogravure can print higher density, higher chrominance and a wider gamut.

8. ISO 12647 compliance, printing standard network

ISO 12647 compliance, printing standard network, supported by Intergraf, cooperation of print and media associations to share knowledge. Check www.psoinsider.de, www.scgm.nl, www.ugra.ch.

Elie mentioned www.keeconsultants.com, a french company to introduce standards in France.

9. Gray Control Strip

Now measurable with the Eye-One, fast reading in strip mode or in patch mode for more accurateness. Patches cannot be smaller than 6 x 6 mm. X-Rite is concerned about small patches, specifies minimum patch size for strip reading to be 10 x 10 mm, 6 mm are too small for exact measurements on uncoated paper types. (Such a device would be technically possible, but very expensive.)

10. BVDM Book package "Color Management in DTP applications"

BVDM Book package “Color Management in DTP applications”, member price is € 118,- Recommended are PDF/X-1a (CMYK) and PDF/X-4 (device independent colors, + keeping live transparencies, converting happens on the latest stage of the production, means during the RIP-process.

11. Media standard print 2008

Media standard print 2008, technical guidelines for materials and printing conditions.

12. New version of Altona test suite

New version of Altona test suite to be launched in Dec. 2008, including new reference prints based on ISO 12647 and updated characterization data.

Print Media Production Forum (PMPF) in Wuppertal, september 3rd and 4th. Workflow, Color management, tools

14. PDF/X-4

PDF/X-4, just published, introduced to the market. Olaf Drümmer asked whether to start also in Germany an initiative to introduce PDF/X-ready. E. Widmer recommended the good acceptation on the swiss market. Will be pushed in Austria, may be Fogra will push PDF/X-ready in Germany.

15. Report from Drupa - Elie:

regarding the “printing across borders” conference with Jan Peter Homann

16, 17. New standard printing conditions, test print series

Web offset and Sheetfed offset with non periodic screening. Very close results, final profiles and characterization data will be provided in a couple of days. Different tone value increase curves, between 13 and 26%, dot size less than 20 micrometer makes it unstable. Download: www.fogra.org, www.eci.org.

18. Liaison reports

IFRA: Semi commercial specifications, published in a IFRA special report. GWG/Belgium is pressing for PDF/X-1a + transparencies + layers. Olaf mentioned that this would occur more problems in the file for users, can be counterproductive.

Next meeting:

D. Wüller mentioned a suggestion from Jan-Willem Rossée: a cruise on a ship called “Color Fantasy” from Kiel to Oslo in spring 2009. Low acceptance, instead decision to meet in Cologne, 23 to 24th of April 2009.

Note by Olaf Drümmer as of May 14, 2009: meanwhile the date for the next meeting has been moved to June 25-26, 2009; venue will still be Cologne