Since it’s inception, the industry standard IT8.7-4 color characterization target has been problematic. In conventional offset printing, the printed results of the visual target (See Figure A) provided press data that was less than accurate to the characterized print process.
Figure A - This is an IT8.7/4 CMYK characterization chart.
Over the years, a solution to randomize the patches was proposed and accepted (See Figure B). The new results were arguably better but still did not reflect the print condition accurately.
Figure B - This is an IT8.7/4 CMYK random characterization chart.
Since no other targets were proposed that solved the problem, Lake County Press has decided to provide a potential solution to this industry wide issue called the TC-1617-X1A target. We evaluated the current IT8.7-4 and removed all the duplicate patches, then added the 3 color gray ramp and black only patches from the industry standard P2P51 target. Adding in the P2P51 3 color neutral and black patches has been proposed for many years by industry leaders like Don Hutchenson and others, so the benefits of including those patches in a profile target are well known. The patches were then organized by hue, and luminance to provide a target format that had rows of similar hues with changing luminance.
This was done to make sure all the colors of similar hue would be inked by the same ink systems and would reflect the ink charge reduction that can occur in offset printing from the front to back of the plate. The resulting datasets are much smoother and do not have the characteristic errors that occur with visual or even averaging the data from two rotated randomized targets.
It is our goal that this process be accepted and adopted by the governing bodies for print color management and as a result advance the accuracy and consistency of color in our industry. Our desire for improving processes and honoring our commitment as a brand steward to the brands we represent are two of the reasons we have chosen to go down this path.
