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.
Another thing is ICC profiles for colour management. This is a joint project with WG2 and JWG7 together with the ICC. An important part of colour management is testforms. What started as the Kodak test form Q60, later called IT8 is now integrated in the ISO 12641- and ISO 12642-series of testforms for printing devices and scanners. One of the first characterisation data sets, the TR001, was created using such test forms. From the characterisation data you can then build ICC-profiles – the cornerstone of all colour managed print production today. Before this was standardised every vendor in the industry had their own proprietary file formats and ways to manage colour. If we go back in time you couldn’t even send an image file from one scanning or imaging system to another. This is why the TIFF file format was developed, to offer a standardised way to encode and save image files.
Q. When did you start working within the ISO-standardisation work?
A. I started in the US National committee in 1998 and my first international meeting was in Geneva in year 2000.
Q. What recent standards has WG2 published, and what use are they intended for?
A. We published the PRX (ISO 20616-1) and PQX (ISO 20616-2) standards couple of years ago (Print Quality eXchange and Print Requirement eXchange) to make it possible to transfer quality control measurement data between different apps. A Brand Owner who wants to manage the quality of their printed products across several print service providers need to be able to compare the print quality data independently on which quality management software solution the printer is using. Up until we launched PRX and PQX all the vendors used their own proprietary file formats for this – a bit as in the old days for image data.
Another small but useful standard is that for exchange of RIP curve data, ISO 18620 Tone adjustment curves exchange. You can simply feed this into the RIP-system and so adjust the presses to comply to a slightly modified press condition.
Q. What new standards is WG2 working on at the moment?
A. We are defining “Best Practices” for the processing steps for PDF workflows. This work is done in cooperation with the Ghent PDF Workgroup, and PDF Association, using PDF/X-6 and PDF 2.0.
This is according the principle much work in WG2 follows: Get input from the industry on what isn’t working too well and then try to find solutions that improve the communication through standards and so improve quality as well as enhance automation.