Color Definition Standards & ICC
International Color Consortium (ICC) Acts to Increase Use of Color Definition Standards

The International Color Consortium, meeting recently in Barcelona, Spain, took steps both to broaden participation in the development of its color management strategies and to gain international recognition for its most recent specification.

The ICC specification, in the version 4.0 approved in 2002, provides a mechanism for equipment manufacturers, software developers, printers, designers, prepress specialists and others involved in graphic communications and related fields to assure that color is clearly defined and uniformly reproduced.

ICC has launched an effort to secure recognition of Version 4.1 as an international standard through the International Organization for Standardization’s Technical Committee 130, Graphic Technology. As part of this effort, an ICC working group is reviewing formatting and other differences between the specification and the ISO requirements and will circulate a proposed document in the near future to harmonize the ICC and ISO formats.

"ICC has tackled one of the most pressing and complex challenges in printing and related industries today and devised a highly effective and actionable specification," says ICC Chairman Lars Borg of Adobe Systems. "It is highly appropriate that this specification should reach a global constituency through the medium of ISO, since effective standardization is one of the keys to our industry’s continued success."

ICC also continued its effort to broaden the range of inputs it gathers in the refinement of the specification. In Barcelona, the Consortium voted to invite a larger number of knowledgeable technology users and industry consultants to participate in future meetings. "Many individuals, although not formally affiliated with an ICC member organization, could bring us very significant new resources of knowledge and experience," Borg commented, "and future versions of the ICC specification will be stronger for their participation in the process."

At previous meetings, ICC had identified a list of specific problems encountered by users in trying to implement color management using the ICC specification. In Barcelona, the Consortium evaluated this list in detail, and members assigned each of the identified problems a priority ranking. ICC’s Graphic Arts Special Interest Working Group will use this prioritized ranking to guide its future input into the specification, and ICC will rely on it in addressing communications and educational needs surrounding the acceptance of ICC color management in the graphic communications industry.

Several actions have been taken by ICC recently to promote better understanding of its work. A set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) has been posted on the ICC website at www.color.org, and interested persons can address specific questions to ICC Technical Secretary Professor Tony Johnson through the "Ask Tony" section of the site.

The International Color Consortium was established in 1993 by eight industry vendors for the purpose of creating, promoting and encouraging the standardization and evolution of an open, vendor-neutral, cross-platform color management system architecture and components. The outcome of this co-operation was the development of the ICC profile specification, now in use by leading vendors of color management solutions. ICC regular membership now includes 67 companies and organizations, in addition to four honorary members and seven liaison members. NPES The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies serves as administrative secretariat to the ICC.

For more information about U.S. TAG visit the NPES Standards Work Room at http://www.npes.org/standards/iso.html .