Here you will find articles about the work in TC 130. To see earlier articles just scroll down below the latest article.
The Scope, or objective, for Workgroup 4 of TC 130 is “Development and review of ISO Standards and other document in the area of media and materials used within the overall scope of ISO TC 130”. We interviewed Tadanobu Sato, convenor (chairman) of the group.
Question: What areas of print production does the workgroup cover?
Answer: Working Group 4 (WG4) of ISO/TC 130 cover materials used in printing. This includes inks, substrates (paper, film, textiles) printing plates etc.
The Scope, or objective, for Workgroup 3 of TC 130 is “Development and review of ISO Standards and other related documents in the area of process control and related metrology for the production of printed matter used in the responsibility of ISO TC 130”. We interviewed Andreas Kraushaar, Convenor of the workgroup, and asked about old and new project in the group.
Question: When was WG3 started and what were the objectives for the WG?
Answer: Working Group 3 (WG3) of ISO/TC 130 was initiated to focus on the standardisation of “Process Control and Related Metrology.” This working group was established to address the industry's need for consistent, repeatable processes and reliable measurement methods across all types of printing technologies. The objectives of WG3 include the development of standards that enhance the consistency, quality, and accuracy of print production processes, covering everything from colour management and process control to calibration techniques. From Fogra’s point of view, the goal has always been to create standards that allow all stakeholders along the “graphic arts food chain” to achieve predictable and high-quality results, regardless of geographic location or technology in use.
The Scope, or objective, for Workgroup 2 of TC 130 is “To develop standards for the exchange of digital data used in the graphic arts and print production”. We interviewed Steve Smiley, Convenor of the workgroup, and asked about old and new project in the group.
Qestion: What would you say are among the most popular and used international standards produced by the group, either on its own or in cooperation with other organisations?
Answer: I would say all the different types of PDF-files used in print and publishing, like the PDF/X-series and PDF/A (for use in the archiving and long-term preservation of electronic documents). The file format was, and still is, developed by Adobe, but the experts in TC 130 WG2 and other organisations like ICC and ISO TC 42 have helped making the file format standardised and robust.
As we know, the complete production of a printed product includes prepress, printing and postpress. Since its establishment, ISO/TC130 has primarily focused on prepress document processing and print process control; there have been no standards for postpress. In May 2010 at the ISO/TC30 spring working group meetings in Switzerland, China took the lead to establish a Task Force for postpress standards. The initiative was supported by many countries including Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Switzerland and Sweden. At the plenary meeting held in October 2010 in São Paulo, TC130 resolved to establish Working Group 12 Postpress. WG12 immediately started work on two postpress standards: ISO/WD 16762 Graphic technology: – Requirements for Postpress – General; and ISO/WD 16763 Graphic Technology: – Requirements for postpress – Bound products.
As part of the UN’s efforts to combat climate change, the UN adopted 17 UNSDGs in 2015 with a view to achieving them partly or completely by 2030. These independent goals are interlinked and define objectives that provide a shared basis for progress towards making the world a better place. This means peace, prosperity and health for all of us and for the planet. Environmental, societal and commercial sustainability are at the heart of the UNSDGs, which replace the eight Millennium Goals that were supposed to have been achieved in 2015.
Print is all-pervasive. While not everyone reads books, most people read magazines, newspapers and websites. And everyone reads the cooking instructions on the food they buy (even if they don’t use a cookery book) and, sometimes with difficulty, the instructions on self-construct furniture.
The printing industry throughout the world has an annual turnover of billions of dollars. And, yet, many people, even governments, have no concept of the process by which printed material is produced.
In 2010 TC130 set up a dedicated Task Force to consider whether there was a need to develop ISO standards related to the environmental impact of print. At the first meeting of this task force an astonishing 35 people participated. By the second meeting in October 2010 the task force had over 60 members, so it was very clear that interest in the topic was high. At its plenary that month TC130 resolved to establish Working Group 11 - Environmental Impact of Graphic Technology (our scope is: "Standards related to the environmental impact of printed materials within the overall scope of TC 130"). WG11 immediately started work on a document to calculate the carbon footprint of printed matter, using a print run as the basic reference.
The ICC profile format has served us well since 1995, enabling documents to be translated between different media while achieving consistent colour. While a few die-hards extol the relative virtues of the original v2 profile format, version four has been increasingly ubiquitous since 2001, and is now seen being used to define standard colour spaces and to connect cameras, scanners, displays and printers everywhere. Importantly from a standards point of view, every international standard that references the ICC profile (of which there are 39 ISO and IEC standards, plus another eight de-facto standards such as JDF, PNG and CSS) points to the v4 specification, generally to the 4.3 version which was published by ISO as ISO 15076-1:22010. ICC recently released a minor revision, ICC.1:2022 (also known as v4.4) which clarifies some ambiguities and adds support for HDR image processing. This newer version is being proposed as an update to ISO 15076-1.
The history behind this workgroup goes back at least as far as 2007, when the graphic arts organization Intergraf created what was called “The Printing Standards Network” and hosted a meeting with standardization experts in The Netherlands that year. The objective was to promote the use of international standards in graphic arts production, to the benefit of printers and “other stakeholders”.
Security printing has changed dramatically over the past decades. New technologies have emerged and security features have grown in complexity to deter fraud and combat counterfeiting. Yet some problems have grown larger, posing serious threats to both our industry and society as a whole –
forged identity and travel documents facilitating illegal border crossings, counterfeit currency passing into worldwide circulation and false identities created from fake birth certificates, to name but a few.
The development of ISO/TS 23031 Assessment and validation of the performance of spectrocolorimeters and spectrodensitometers followed a somewhat unusual and circuitous path through the ISO document development process. However, it all began rather innocently, at the spring meeting of ISO TC 130, which was held in May 2015 in Bologna, Italy. At that meeting an expert from the UK Delegation had prepared a brief proposal, more of a request actually, tabled as document N1697*, "UK Proposal for new work item". The proposal was titled, Inter-Manufacturer / Instrument Agreement – Calibration and Servicing. It stated that the request had arisen from issues uncovered by the Steering Committee for the British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF) ISO 12647 certification called Colour Quality Scheme, in which conformance to the requirements of the various parts of ISO 12647 mandates that all instruments used to assess conformance should recalibrated and serviced according to the manufacturer's requirements. It further stipulates that all laboratories performing such work must be certified to ISO 17025 Testing and calibration laboratories. However, only a small number of organizations in the world can afford to operate an ISO 17025 testing and calibration laboratory. Thus, a clear need for an international document was identified, a document that would describe a common methodology for calibrating and validating spectrophotometers, spectrodensitometers and spectrocolorimeters that are used in the production of printed coloured images.