Are you still using an Idealliance control strip for color verification? Maybe an old one from 2009 or 2013?

There's a newer, more capable control strip you could be running instead. Let's review.

The ChromaChecker CC84 control strip and the Idealliance Control Wedge (ISO 12647-7:2013) are both used in the printing industry for color verification. They share some similarities — both use 84 color patches — but they have a critical difference when it comes to G7 calibration.

The ChromaChecker CC84 Control Strip

• A proprietary control strip developed by ChromaChecker, a company specializing in color conformance solutions.
• Contains 84 color patches, measured with a spectrophotometer.
• Includes duplicate substrate (paper white), solid (CMYK), and overprint (RGB) patches.
• Includes all of the G7 gray-finder patches from rows 4 and 5 of the P2P chart.
• Designed to provide comprehensive data for evaluating color accuracy, consistency, and uniformity — and specifically optimized for G7 calibration.

The Idealliance ISO 12647-7 Control Wedge

• A control wedge published by Idealliance (formerly the International Digital Enterprise Alliance), built to conform to ISO 12647-7.
• ISO 12647-7 is an international standard published by ISO — not by Idealliance. Idealliance produces the wedge; ISO produces the standard.
• ISO 12647-7 covers proofing — specifically, "proofing processes working directly from digital data." It specifies requirements for systems producing hard-copy digital proof prints intended to simulate a printing condition defined by a set of characterization data. (Offset press printing is covered by a different part of the series, ISO 12647-2.)
• Contains 84 patches, measured to verify that output meets specified colorimetric criteria.
• Widely recognized and long used across the industry for maintaining consistent proof quality and color accuracy.

Note: the current edition of the standard is ISO 12647-7:2016. If you're running a wedge named for the 2013 edition — or worse, a 2009-era strip — that's worth knowing on its own.

The Difference That Actually Matters

Both strips let you verify conformance to G7 Grayscale and/or G7 Targeted.

But only the CC84 can be used to create or revise G7 curves — because it's the only one of the two that carries all of the gray-finder patches.

G7 is a calibration method developed by Idealliance for achieving consistent gray balance and neutral tonality. It works by calibrating devices to a common neutral print density curve, using specific colorimetric measurements to produce consistent results across different printing processes and substrates.

Why Switch?

Here's the practical argument. If you're going to give up valuable room on your press sheet, you may as well use a control strip that can also build your G7 calibration curve.

By including the CC84 on your print jobs, you can at any point pull measurements from multiple jobs, average that data, and use it to create a new G7 curve or edit an existing one — from your actual production work, rather than from a special calibration run.

Same real estate on the sheet. Considerably more value.

Schedule a Consultation

We'd love to show you how to implement the CC84 control strip in your workflow. Contact Bill Owen for more information.
billo@aldertech.com — 720-933-4413