It may not have a snappy name, but the ISO 12647 standard can help digital printers prove that their colour is up to scratch. Laurel Brunner elucidates.
It’s fair to say that compared to conventional offset, digital technology is a relatively new business with a unique scope to change how print is used. Advances in quality mean that digital print is no longer a second-rate alternative to real offset, so for many jobs these days it is considerations of responsiveness, cost and format that are the deciding factors when choosing between processes. Yet while many digital printers can certainly compete with offset for output quality, just saying so is not enough for print buyers. They increasingly demand absolute quality guarantees.
So far there is no formally recognised methodology for quality assurance, nor is there any guarantee that steps to achieve it are implemented consistently. Print buyers have to trust their eyes or go through often convoluted processes of quality checking. For printers this means they often have to provide themselves against subjective criteria and expectations over which they have little control.
To be continued…
