G7® for Digital Dye Sublimation
G7® establishes the methodology for compliance with the ISO 10128 standard for gray balance and calibration in the Specifications for Web Offset Printing. Commercial offset printers that comply with the G7 standard as implemented by IDEAlliance calibrate their presses so that the printed colors are consistent regardless of printer, substrate, screening technologies, and inks.
Dye sublimation ink does not meet the requirements for G7 Targeted, Colorspace, or Extreme calibration. But dye sublimation printers can be calibrated to be in compliance with the G7 Grayscale or 1.8.1 level. This means the the balance of CMY inks produces a neutral grayscale. G7 Grayscale is the lowest level of compliance. Using G7 Grayscale compliance can form the foundation for producing consistent color over time, under varying conditions, and across multiple printers. Refer to the IDEAlliance G7 Guide for more information.
Dye sublimation ink does not meet the requirements for G7 Targeted, Colorspace, or Extreme calibration. But dye sublimation printers can be calibrated to be in compliance with the G7 Grayscale or 1.8.1 level. This means the the balance of CMY inks produces a neutral grayscale. G7 Grayscale is the lowest level of compliance. Using G7 Grayscale compliance can form the foundation for producing consistent color over time, under varying conditions, and across multiple printers. Refer to the IDEAlliance G7 Guide for more information.
G7 Guideline for Digital Dye Sublimation
Roy Bohnen (ColorOnsite.com) developed an unofficial digital dye sublimation guideline for use with Curve software. The following graphs show average achieved dye sub results versus the SWOP (ISO 12647) standard. The green dots encircled by yellow define the desired ink color targets for the SWOP standard. The colored curves are typical of what digital dye sublimation ink can achieve.
Yellow dye sublimation ink is reasonably close to the SWOP targets. The magenta ink quickly bends towards orange as high levels of ink are used. Cyan quickly hooks from true cyan to blue as more ink is laid down, even at relatively low levels of concentration. We have measured multiple inks using a variety of transfer paper and fabric. These measurements converge to an average that we offer as a guideline as shown in the next graph.
The Digital Dye Sublimation Guideline can be downloaded and installed for use with Curve software. On either Windows or OS X, create a sub-directory named "Color Standards" in the folder that holds the Curve program. Then install the following color standard file for dye sublimation in the new sub-directory.
dye_sub.cie.txt | |
File Size: | 0 kb |
File Type: | txt |
CHROMiX Curve2, Curve3, and Curve4 are products of CHROMiX and HutchColor.
GRACoL and G7 are trademarks of IDEAlliance.
GRACoL and G7 are trademarks of IDEAlliance.