(From Printing United Alliance. Full article here.)

Some of the most exciting Print Properties projects are about Expanded Color Gamut (ECG). The most popular of these are the 7 Color ECG project and PrintWide®. The ECG project is about standardizing expanded gamut printing, including characterization charts, methods and a target print condition. The PrintWide project is a colorspace for use with wide gamut digital print, as well as a wide gamut CMYK translation space. Both projects share something in common— they both use G7® as their calibration method and they are both targeting color spaces that are larger than standard CMYK print conditions. (Gamut is the volume of color a device can produce. Expanded gamut is defined as producing a larger gamut than a standard print condition such as GRACoL®.)

Most current print targets are based on litho print standards, the most famous being ISO 12647-2, which is the basis for GRACoL and Fogra. These color spaces are widely used, even in non-lithographic printing such as digital and flexo. Printing technology is changing, and while these standards still represent good printing, many new print technologies can print with much more color. Using standard print targets on these devices means users are printing with much less color than the device is capable of achieving. So, while print conditions based on ISO 12647-2 such as GRACoL are great and widely used, many newer print technologies can print with a lot more color. If you ask designers if they would like more color or less, most will pick more vibrant and colorful.

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