Proposal to offer Quality evaluation service at IFRA Research and Material Testing Centre
The WANIFRA Research and Material Testing centre can offer this service. It will be a need-based service to the publishers who wants to do an assessment of the quality of their print reproduction. If a publisher avail this service, we will evaluate the quality of reproduction of a press in its normal production settings and check its conformance to ISO standards. This service will be an addition to the existing list of newsprint and newsink tests that we offer at the research centre.
Publishers will be encouraged to avail this service once in a month to constantly monitor the quality of their reproduction and improve. For the first year, we will have a limit on the number of participants who sign up for this project.
Necessity of this project:
Publishers have their own method of evaluating the press. They use test runs or use control strips along with their editorial content to evaluate the performance of their press. Some do not practice such procedures at all. There are number of variables like the prepress settings, press settings, densitometer settings, knowledge and skill of their personnel etc… that will affect the outcome of their evaluation procedures. If they avail our service, we can share IFRA’s knowledge and expertise in this field. All the measurements will be done under standard conditions as per ISO specifications and provide accurate measurements, which they can use to improve the quality of print reproduction. Possibilities will also arise for in-house training to the participating organizations.
Procedure:
The IFRA Research Centre will provide WANIFRA control called “Cuboid” strip to the publishers. The publishers must print the control strip and send the copies to the centre for quality evaluation.
The following parameters will be evaluated from the printed control strip.
- Colour Register.
- Mid-tone spread.
- Wet on wet ink Trapping.
- Paper shade
- Colour of the black ink.
- Colour values of primary and secondary colours, plot a 3-d structure of the colour gamut and compare it with ISO colour gamut for newsprint.
- Gray balance in press. Measure the Delta C in the ISO specified gray balance areas (HL gray, MT gray and SH gray).
- Plate evaluation (optional) – Tonal range of the plate (Min. reproducible highlight dot % and Max. Reproducible shadow dot %), Sharpness (Micro lines and star target), Uniformity over the width of the plate (measuring 50% tint at different regions), accuracy of RIP calibration (comparison of the reproduced dot values in the plate with the printer’s intended values), Screen ruling, Dot shape and Screen angle. For this, the publishers to image a special control strip in the plate and send the plate to the Research Centre.
Reporting system:
A report will be generated with all the details of the measurement done. The report will compare the press and pre-press systems under test with the standards of ISO 12647-3. The report will tell a publisher the measured values and their deviation from ISO 12647-3. It will also tell them where they stand in comparison with the other participants.
How it is different from ICQC?
ICQC and Asia Media awards are competitions that occur once in two years. The quality evaluation service that we propose will be a platform for the publishers to evaluate their performance and constantly improve it. That is why we encourage them to take the test once in a month. Moreover, it will help them to prepare for these competitions.
Other optional service:
Any publisher who wants to do a test run and evaluated at the Research Centre, we can provide them test pages to be printed and sent to us. Apart from the measurements mentioned earlier, the following measurements will also be done.
- Density across the entire width of the plate
- Ink starvation and
- Slur, doubling and ghosting
Scope for research:
If we offer this service, over a period, we will have lot of data. This will offer lot of scope for our research activities related to press quality control.