Color Management

Mission

The color management subcommittee investigates color management issues and 'best practices' for PDF/ X-1a, PDF/X-3 and PDF/X-4 workflows and defines how to implement and promote these in the GWG specifications for PDF file creation and preflighting.

Current Activities

• Color management in PDF/X-4 - The committee is reviewing best practices and white paper creation on how to create such PDF files, what requirements an Output Workflow has to fulfill, when to perform the final color conversion and which color spaces to disallow.
• Transparency flattening of device dependent and device independent PDF - Since transparency flattening can not be done without active color management, we are looking into current issues to evaluate the use of specs that allow live transparency on one hand but disallow color managed color spaces on the other hand.
• Output test suite - The subcommittee is working together with the Process Control subcommittee to create patches for the following issues: color managed objects and white overprint issues related to various color spaces

List of recommended ICC Profiles

We recommend that PDF producers creating PDF's for print contact their printer or regional association in order to communicate about the best suitable profile to be used for color conversions and proofing for a specific print job on a specific paper type. This GWG recommendation concerning standard profiles for printing can be used as a general guideline in case there is no contact between the PDF creator and the printer.

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