Alwan Color Expertise, a leader in Color Control and Standardization technologies, announces the latest release of its color management & control suite of Software with new High-Fidelity (HiFi) capability guaranteeing color accuracy and consistency across printing technologies.

The interconnection of the complete software solution optimizes the print production workflow connecting Alwan ColorHub/X 5.0, Alwan PrintStandardizer/X 5.0 and Alwan PrintVerifier/X 3.0.  This optimized workflow now enables print buyers and printers to agree on aims and tolerances for each print job and make sure that visuals and brand colors are reproduced accurately and within agreed upon tolerances.

Elie Khoury, founder and president of Alwan, defines how this new software suite ushers in a new era for the graphic arts industry: "Until now, print buyers and printers had two ways to assess the conformance of a printed product. They either agree on a process control standard such as ISO 12647 or on a proprietary color definition and assessment method for brand and special colors. Today, with the imminent publishing of ISO 15339, the new printing standard enables color reproduction across printing technologies.

Print buyers and printers have the ability to define and assess aims and tolerances for printed colors (not only process colors) based on an ISO standard. This major breakthrough for the graphic arts industry has been possible thanks to the ISO TC130 committee and to the editor of this standard, Mr. Dave McDowell, one of the most influential figures within TC130.  In honor of Mr. McDowell's accomplishments, we have named our new Alwan Color Expertise Color Suite v5.0, which fully implements ISO 15339, the “McDowell Suite".

The McDowell Suite also supports ISO 17972-4 known as the CxF/X-4 standard, which enables brand owners to define and communicate an accurate description of the colors they expect from the printing process.  “We believe that these two new standards will help the printing industry make a huge step towards the necessary automation and optimization of printing workflows from color definition to color reproduction to color conformance across the supply chain. For all these reasons we have decided to have these standards implemented and available in our new suite”.

The new Alwan McDowell Suite offers numerous and unique advantages for each print application: Commercial Printing: Print Buyer's can choose printing aims from ISO's 15339 seven standard Color Reference Printing Conditions ranging from small (newspaper) to large (digital). They can also choose printing tolerances for a job from 3 levels of conformance, stringent (level A), normal (level B) or relaxed (level C). Once printing aims and tolerances are chosen, they will be used by Alwan Color Suite's Color Management with ColorHub, Process Control with PrintStandardizer, and Color Conformance with PrintVerifier, ensuring that agreed on aims and tolerances are achieved.

Packaging Printing: Consumer Products Companies can define their brand colors using CxF/X-4 spectral color definition. A description of the expected color for each printing process and media can be included in the CxF/X-4 metadata. Alwan Color Suite can carry this information throughout the workflow, color manage it for optimal proofing and printing on 4, 5, 6 & 7 color process HiFi output, and assess its reproduction conformance based on standard or custom tolerances.

Specialty Printing: Printing processes that are different from ink on paper such as textile, ceramics, etc. require specific color management.  The new Alwan Suite embeds technologies that allow printers to calibrate, characterize and maintain the stability of any printing process using any colorant and any substrate with virtually no limit. All color operations performed by Alwan Suite are documented using a sophisticated PDF, XML as well as online reporting systems that can be shared among supply chain stakeholders.