The coming competition, the fifth, is run jointly for the second time by Ifra and the Newspaper Association of America, and supported also by the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association. The organizers have decided that the competition winners should be the winning newspapers in real life, too, delivering consistent color quality to their readers and advertising customers.

General arrangements

Here’s how the competition will work: the attainment of actual club membership will no longer be linked to reaching a specific number of points, as was the case previously. Instead, International Newspaper Color Quality Club 2002-2004 membership will be limited to the top 50 highest scores.

In terms of rules, there are changes to all three main evaluation areas — the general print quality check, the colorimetric measurement procedure and the standard image reproduction stage. Overall, entrants will receive more pictures and test images for reproduction, more measurements will be taken, and more effort will be made to supply material and monitor the processes used in real newspaper workflows.

Rigorous print quality procedure

In this area, here’s perhaps the most stimulating new rule: while entrants could decide previously on which set of printed copies to submit, this time, it’s down to the organizers to choose the three days within the one month competition period from which the participants have to submit seven copies of a day’s production for evaluation.

This is in addition to the copies containing the standard image. The specific days will only be announced by the organizers at the end of the chosen month. That means that competitors’ normal production quality must be kept at a competitive level for an extended period. The newspapers that can maintain this effort rightly deserve membership of a very exclusive club.

Colorimetric measurement procedure

Altogether, almost 1,500 patches (compared with 296 before) will be measured and evaluated on each of the special newspaper samples.

Knowing that this competition called for a greater number of individual measurements than ever before, and naturally also hoping for a record number of participating newspapers, Ifra has made considerable investment in measuring equipment, deploying new devices from several leading suppliers.

Printing should conform to the ISO 12647-3 standard. If you need to check these specifications, see the table at www.ifra.com. To download the PDF, go to www.ifra.com, and look under “Hot Topics” for information on the Color Quality Club 2002-2004. In the press release, click on the “paper clip” icon to download. You can also order a copy of ISO 12647-3 “Graphic technology — Process control for the manufacture of half-tone color separations, proofs and production prints — Part 3: Coldset offset lithography and letterpress on newsprint” from ISO at www.iso.ch/liste/TC130.html.

There are three new criteria regarding colorimetric measurement:

First, besides evaluating the primary and secondary printing colors (CMYRGB), the color of the black newsink and the newsprint shade will also be measured and points awarded depending on how close to the ISO 12647-3 standard they are.

Second, to simulate the grey balance of digital ads received from ad agencies, a distinction is to be made not only on how well greys in the original photo image are reproduced, but also how well the ISO-defined CMY grey values are reproduced.

Third, the mid-tone halftone value increase (dot gain) for each of the CMYK inks will be checked. The aim is the difference in the tone value increase between any two inks should be less than 6 percent.

An ISO 12642, or IT8.7/3, output target, as used in producing profiles for color management systems, is planned.

Moreover, the implementation of a new color difference formula, CIE DE 2000, brings greater accuracy to monitoring the reproduction of the standard set of color patches based on the ISO 12641, or IT8.7/1 and 2, test targets. The CIE DE 2000 formula brings color difference calculations in closer agreement with how the eye judges color differences.

Now, if there are equal visual differences between colors, the calculations reflect this with an equal color difference value. With previous formulae, the magnitude of the color difference was partly dependent on which colors and which parts of the color gamut were being compared, and less on how the difference was perceived.

With the new evaluation, since we total the color differences between the specified target and the measured values for the printed color chart, inaccuracies in the calculation of the color differences will be significant. Generally, the total of the color differences is going to be lower for the same number of patches measured and a bad color difference value really means a significant perceptual difference, which in the past was not always the case.

Further standard images

Under the new rules, every newspaper entrant must now print a second image in addition to the ISO 12641 test target. A digital RGB image, similar to the type of data file that newspapers receive from news picture agencies, has to be printed in addition to a photographic print.

Benefits of the new rules

The new rules and more exacting measurement criteria will bring benefits both for competitors and the industry as a whole. More data and graphics from competition measurements will lead to a greater understanding of problems and the development of practical solutions.

These, of course, are just some of the changes envisaged. But for all concerned — the organizers, the participants, and, naturally, the club members, who can expect industry-wide acclaim — the new International Newspaper Color Quality Club 2002-2004 will be the best ever.