Meeting the G7 Color Challenge
Today’s PSPs experience more jobs, shorter runs, and faster turnarounds. At the same time, the demand for high-quality and repeatable color production continues to increase. It is important to establish a common baseline of shared neutral appearance when printing to help minimize visual color variations. To accomplish this, a standardized calibration process was created, known as “G7.”
G7 calibration and certified compliance in print reproduction can provide high-color image quality by helping to provide color neutrality, print contrast, and a shared neutral appearance across disparate devices—even with different media, inks, and toners.
G7 compliance levels build on a foundation of gray balance, tonal contrast, and common visual appearance, or G7 Grayscale, and can be achieved using one-dimensional calibration curves. When solid CMYK and overprint RGB colors show a good match to a targeted reference print condition (e.g., SWOP or GRACoL), the system can reach the higher G7 compliance level, known as G7 Targeted. When the average of all the color patches in a targeted reference print condition and the 95th percentile of colors also show a good match, the system is capable of achieving the highest G7 compliance level, G7 Colorspace.
Print buyers and brand owners often report that G7 offers color
predictability, while affording print PSPs faster make-readies and color approvals. G7 validation tools provide a numerical method to help validate success and long-term operational consistency.
Canon (Booth 1213) recognizes all these advantages, plus the time required and the complexities of G7 calibration and device characterization. To simplify the process, Canon developed the PRISMAsync color print server with the G7 Aware Profiler. It’s the first DFE-embedded G7 certified solution available for electrophotography.
PRISMAsync G7 is embedded in the PRISMAsync color print server for Canon imagePRESS digital color presses, system version 4.x or above, with the Advanced Color Management Option. It consists of a G7 grayscale calibrator and embedded color profiler for the Canon imagePRESS printers. The PRISMAsync G7 methodology is advantageous because of its design, which assists users in achieving G7 conformance by generating G7 calibration curves, and a high-quality “G7-aware color profile” with its neutral axis constructed on the G7 target; and it does this all from a single, modestly sized set of measurement data.
With PRISMAsync, all the benefits of G7 are all possible in an automated, device characterization system that is embedded in the PRISMAsync workflow. The system provides an introduction to process control through color measurement and management. PRISMAsync is a great solution to help enterprises deliver client expectations of reliable, high-quality color with the additional possibility of reducing costs.
