Application Notes

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 ErgoSoft
TM
ColorQPC
ErgoSoft AG
Moosgrabenstr. 13
CH-8595 Altnau, Switzerland

© 2011 ErgoSoft AG, All rights reserved.

The information contained in this manual is based on information available at the time of publication and is sub-
ject to change without notice. Accuracy and completeness are not warranted or guaranteed.
No part of this manual may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic me-
dium or machine-readable form, without the expressed written permission of ErgoSoft AG.

Brand or product names are trademarks of their respective holders.

The ErgoSoft RIP is available in different editions. Therefore the description of available features in this document
does not necessarily reflect the license details of your edition of the ErgoSoft RIP. For information on the features
included in your edition of the ErgoSoft RIPs refer to the ErgoSoft homepage or contact your dealer.

Rev. 1.1

ErgoSoft ColorQPCTM i
 Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................1
ColorQPC Measure – Creating a New Measurement Session ..................................................................2
Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................................2
Workflow Overview .............................................................................................................................................3
Workflow 1: New Session .................................................................................................................................5
STEP I. Setup ....................................................................................................................................................5
STEP II. Print .....................................................................................................................................................6
STEP III. Measure ............................................................................................................................................7
STEP IV. Compare Measurements ...........................................................................................................8
STEP V. Measurement Session Report ...................................................................................................9
Step VI. HTML Report................................................................................................................................ 10
Workflow 2: Existing Session – Printed but not Measured ............................................................... 11
STEP I. Setup ................................................................................................................................................. 11
Workflow 3: Existing Session – Printed and Measured ...................................................................... 12
STEP I. Setup ................................................................................................................................................. 12
ColorQPC Setup Details.................................................................................................................................. 13
Launch Setup ................................................................................................................................................ 13
Tab I. Color Chart ........................................................................................................................................ 13
Tab II. Statistics ............................................................................................................................................ 14
Tab III. Report Options .............................................................................................................................. 15
ColorQPC Analyze – Comparing Measurement Sessions........................................................................ 16
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................ 16
STEP I. Session Selection ................................................................................................................................ 17
STEP II. Multiple Session On-Screen Report ........................................................................................... 18
STEP III. HMTL Report ..................................................................................................................................... 19
Suggested Methods for using ColorQPC ...................................................................................................... 20
Checking Profiles .............................................................................................................................................. 20
Process Control.................................................................................................................................................. 21
STEP I. Create Baseline Measurement Sessions .............................................................................. 21
STEP II: Compute Baseline Warning and Fail Limit Statistics ...................................................... 22
STEP III. Update Warning and Fail Limit Statistics in ColorQPC Settings............................... 22
STEP IV. Process Control .......................................................................................................................... 23

ErgoSoft ColorQPCTM ii
Introduction
ErgoSoft ColorQPC™ is a color quality process control solution for monitoring and certifying
color results from a digital printing system. ColorQPC permits production shops to

Determine whether a color profile produces accuracy color results,

Assess potential color differences with ink and media lot changes or printer mainten-
ance,
Ensure critical spot colors in a production job are printed correctly,
Certify that a printer, ink and media combination print can reproduce color output to a
specific printing standard.

ColorQPC consists of two modules: ColorQPC Measure and ColorQPC Analyze.

ErgoSoft ColorQPC™ Measure prints and measures a definable set of colors from a Swatch
Book or Named Colors recipe and checks whether the printed colors fall within preset color
tolerances.

ErgoSoft ColorQPC™ Analyze provides quality departments and production managers with
an overall summary of color process control information from a given printer.

Both ColorQPC modules include options to conduct color process control comparisons to an
expected set of color values or to results from previous production runs. The color coded
HTML reports also make it easy to identify which colors or production jobs passed or ex-
ceeded the required color tolerances.

ColorQPC™ will be included in most standard and Premium editions of the ErgoSoft RIP V14
(such as TexPrint, PosterPrint Pro, PosterPrint Premium) and works with all supported color
measurement devices.

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ColorQPC Measure – Creating a New Measurement Session
Introduction
ErgoSoft ColorQPC™ Measure prints and measures a definable set of colors from a Swatch
Book or Named Colors recipe and checks whether the printed colors fall within preset color
tolerances. Customizable color difference statistics and summary results are reported on
screen and as an HTML document for easy assessment of the results. ColorQPC incorporates
adjustable controls for setting warning and fail tolerances that alert printer operators about
color control errors before, during and after a production job. This reduces production waste
and certifies that the printed output meets a customer’s color critical requirements. Special
reporting features within ColorQPC determines whether specific tested colors are within a
printer’s color gamut and optionally excludes these colors from the quality statistics.

ColorQPC Measure is launched using menu Tools > Color & Special Features > ColorQPC
Measure.

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Workflow Overview
The overall workflows for ColorQPC Measure is shown in the figure below and explained in
the next chapters.

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 Define Print Environment: A Print Environment is selected based on the print job re-
quirements.
Specify Color Process Control Setup: The color process control setup provides the defi-
nition for monitoring specific colors before, during or after a production run. Three specif-
ic items are included in the setup:
Color Test Chart Design: The design of the color test chart is based on the colors to
be monitored, either from a Swatch Book or Named Colors, and the chart geometry for
the color measurement device being used.
Statistical Process Control (SPC) Parameters: The statistical process defines what is
considered acceptable, marginal and out-of-tolerance colors on the color test chart.
Reporting Options: The options to be used as part of the statistical analysis report
(e.g. Company Name, Customer Name, Reference ID, and others).
Select Session/Print Session: The user selects whether to start a new session with this
Color Chart and SPC parameters.
If it is a new session, the module generates a print job and ID, which then is printed.
If an existing session is chosen, the session is assumed to have been printed, but not
necessarily measured.
If the session has already been printed and measured then it goes to Single Session
Report.
Measure Session: The Test Chart is measured using the device designed to the printed
color test chart.
Session Report: Single session analysis provides specific color difference details between
the measured and expected results. The analysis indicates whether the printed job passed,
marginally passed or failed.

In addition to single session reports in ColorQPC Measure, ColorQPC Analyze offers the
possibility to evaluate all the sessions associated with a Color Process Control setup. This
function is described later in this document.

The workflow in ColorQPC Measure permits the user to complete the print and measure-
ment and reporting steps at different times.

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Workflow 1: New Session

STEP I. Setup

1
Select New ColorQPC
Measure Session. 1

2
Choose the ColorQPC Setting 2
from the pull-down menu that
you want to use for the current
ColorQPC Measure session.
Administrators can edit, create
and delete ColorQPC settings. 3
For a description of the
ColorQPC Settings, please refer
to chapter “ColorQPC Setup
Details”.
The ColorQPC Settings summary 4
is displayed in the information
window. 5

3
The current Print Environment and information about the status of the current
ColorQPC Measure session is displayed.

4
Clicking the button Paths optionally saves data from the current session to a specific
location that is different than the standard location in the user data folder. Please note
that this setting only changes the path for the current session and is not a global setting.

5
Click the Next button to continue.

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STEP II. Print

1
For printing, the chart is au-
tomatically created according
to the configuration of the selected
ColorQPC Settings for the current 1
measurement session. ColorQPC
Measure automatically rotates
charts for better media usage
whenever possible. Print Options
provide additional options for print-
ing the chart:
Option Print multiple calibra-
3
tion charts across job width
duplicates the calibration chart 2
across the entire printing width
such that every second chart is
rotated by 180°. This prevents
having to reprint the chart if one
chart is damaged.
Option Print additional charts
rotated 90° across job width
works together with previous op-
tion and adds a second row of
calibration charts that is rotated
by 90° respectively by 270°.
When using the Edit job before
printing option, a generated
chart can be viewed and mod-
ified in the ErgoSoft RIP before
printing. Since print environment
settings can be changed acci-
dently before printing and in turn
impact results, it is advisable to 4
use this option only in limited in-
stances.

2
Click the Spectrophotometer button to change the measuring device to be used.

3
Click the Print button to print the chart.

4
Click the Next button to measure the chart. Clicking Cancel either prompts to save the
session as a file, if a chart has been printed, or exits the ColorQPC Measure module.
The saved session file can be reopened at a later time in order to measure the printed chart
(see the description of workflow 2).

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STEP III. Measure

1 The Manage Measurement dialog includes controls for measuring and saving the ses-
sion chart measurements:
Click the Measure button to start the measurement. When having measured the complete
chart, click OK to transfer the measurement into the Manage Measurements dialog. We
recommend performing minimum 3 measurements to be able to identify measurement er-
rors.
Click the Save button to save the measurements.
Click the Load button to load saved measurements of the chart in order to continue an
interrupted measuring session. Please note that you can only load measurements exactly
made for the session chart. A warning message may be displayed if the measurements are
potentially made for another measurement session.
The functions on the right side of the dialog allow highlighting deviations, deleting and re-
measuring single patches (when it is supported in the measuring device).

2
Click the OK button to continue. Click Cancel to cancel measuring and return to the
ColorQPC Measure: Print Chart dialog.

Please note that the measurements are displayed in absolute colorimetric. When the Co-
lorQPC Setting is defined with the relative colorimetric rendering intent, the displayed Lab
values may vary from the actual measured Lab values. Changing the rendering intent is de-
scribed in the chapter entitled “ColorQPC Setup Details”.

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STEP IV. Compare Measurements

1
Choose the method of analyz-
ing and displaying the current
1
measurement in the reports.
Show measurements only
Only the measurement values
and out-of-gamut information
are displayed.
Compare with expected values
Compare the measurement ses-
sion results to expected Lab val-
ues for the test chart.
Compare with another
ColorQPC Measure session
Compare the measurement ses-
sion results to a previous session
(i.e. a “golden standard”). In this 2
case, you have to select a print
environment and another measure session to report results.

2
Click the Next button to continue. Clicking Cancel prompts either to save the session
or discard the results. Saved sessions can be evaluated at a later time (see the descrip-
tion of workflow 3).

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STEP V. Measurement Session Report

The measurement session report

dialog displays results based on the
analysis method in Step IV.

The signal lamp icon and the 1

1
message below icon visually
highlight the analysis results based
on the warning and fail delta E (dE)
color limits defined in the ColorQPC
Settings: 2
Red: One or more color patches
are higher than fail limit.
3 5
Yellow: One or more color
4
patches are higher than the
warning limit and no colors ex-
ceed the fall limit. 6 7
Green: All color patches are lower
than warning and fail limits.
When the analyses is based on the Compare with expected values option, the warning
and fail limits are based on the color differences between the measured values and ex-
pected Lab values for each color patch. The Compare with another ColorQPC Measure
session analyses uses the warning and fail limits to compare the results between two
measurement sessions. No icon is displayed for the Show measurements only option.

2
Overall statistics for the measurement session based on the ColorQPC Settings. This
information is not displayed with the Show measurements only option.

3
Clicking the Measurements button redisplays the measurement dialog and permits re-
measure of all or parts of the test chart.

4
Clicking the Show Report button creates an HTML report, automatically saves it, and
displays it in the default web browser. Refer to Step VI: HTML Report for more details
about the report.

5
Clicking the Export Data button allows to save the measurement data in csv format.

6
Clicking the Back button returns to the Compare Measurements dialog. This provides
the option to perform other comparisons using the session measurements.

7
Clicking the Finish button closes the ColorQPC Measure session and saves the session
information while the Cancel button closes the session without saving.

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Step VI. HTML Report

The HTML report is only

created and saved when
clicking the Show Report
button.

1
Report header: Dis-
1
plays information
about the ColorQPC
Measure session accord-
ing to the ColorQPC Set-
tings.

2
Displays visual sig-
2
nal lamp icon, sta-
tistics and pass, warning
or fail messages.

3
Displays the list of
colors printed in-
cluding the approximate
color as a square, the 3
name of the color de-
fined in the Swatch book
or Named Colors, the
expected Lab values, the
measured Lab values and
the color difference (dE)
between the expected
and measured results.
The color coding used in
the color difference col-
umn designates whether or not a color passed the evaluation:
Gray indicates out-of-gamut colors (Only shown if comparison done to expected values).
Green indicates specific color passed
Yellow indicates specific color was higher than the warning limit, and
Red indicates specific color exceeded the fail limit.

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Workflow 2: Existing Session – Printed but not Measured
This workflow is done when measuring and analyzing a chart printed at an earlier time.

STEP I. Setup

1
Select Existing ColorQPC
Measure Session. 1

2
Choose the ColorQPC Setting 2
from the pull-down menu for
which you want to load a ColorQPC
Measure session.

3
3
Select the desired Print Envi-
ronment. Please note that 4
only print environments used with
the selected ColorQPC settings will
be displayed.
5
4
Select the ColorQPC Measure
Session that you want to 6
measure. The ChartID and print time
is displayed in the lower information field. Please note that the measurement session list only
shows sessions created with the selected print environment and ColorQPC Settings.
Clicking the Delete button next to the list will remove the selected ColorQPC Measure
session from the system.

5
Clicking the button Paths optionally saves the data for the current session in a specific
location that is different from the standard location in the user data folder. Please note
that this setting only saves reports and results for the current session and is not a global set-
ting.

6
Click the Next button to continue.
The Manage Measurements dialog will be displayed. Follow Steps III to VI in the “New
Session” workflow for reporting and saving session results.

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Workflow 3: Existing Session – Printed and Measured

STEP I. Setup

1
Select Existing ColorQPC
Measure Session. 1

2
Choose the ColorQPC Setting 2
from the pull-down menu for
which you want to load a ColorQPC
Measure session.

3
3
Select the desired Print
Environment. Please note 4
that only print environments used
with the selected ColorQPC settings
will be displayed.
5
4
Select the ColorQPC Measure
Session that you want to eva- 6
luate. The ChartID, print time and
measurement time is displayed in the lower information field. Please note that the measure-
ment session list only shows all sessions created with the selected print environment and
ColorQPC settings.
Clicking the Delete button next to the list will remove the selected ColorQPC Measure
session from the system.

5
Clicking the button Paths optionally saves the data for the current session in a specific
location that is different from the standard location in the user data folder. Please note
that this setting only saves reports and results for the current session and is not a global set-
ting.

6
Click the Next button to continue.
The ColorQPC Measure: Compare Measurements dialog will be displayed. Follow
Steps IV to VI in the “New Session” workflow.

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ColorQPC Setup Details

Launch Setup

In the ColorQPC Measure: Color Quality

Setup dialog, choose the ColorQPC
Settings Edit or Create buttons to
configure the ColorQPC settings for
ColorQPC Measure.

Tab I. Color Chart

1
The current print environment is dis-
played.

2
The Color book to be used for creating
the test chart can be selected with vari- 1
ous options. 2
Choose Swatch Book or Named Colors.
Please note that the lab values of Named
Colors may not be accurate and can im-
pact the results.
Choose to evaluate with either Absolute or
3
Relative Colorimetric rendering intent.
Reset colors when an alternative set of
Swatch Books or Named Colors are re-
quired. Please note that once the ColorQPC
Settings are saved, the current Swatch
Book/Named Colors are stored for the 4
ColorQPC Setting. If the Swatch Book or
Named Colors are changed in the ErgoSoft RIP, these changes will not be updated in the
list of stored colors.
View Colors pops up an HTML file to verify the colors and Lab values to be used for the
chart.

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 3
Chart Options

Selection of color measurement device and geometries required for the printed test chart.
The number of patches per row can be selected for the color device. The pulldown pro-
vides a list of recommended numbers for the specific color measurement device and
geometry.
Test Chart Size summarizes the number of charts and the number of rows/columns to be
printed.

4
Clicking OK prompts to save the ColorQPC settings.

Tab II. Statistics

1
The Statistics can be saved as a preset
by clicking on the Add button or de-
leted with the Delete button.
1
2
Choose the desired Delta E calculation
used for the reports.
2
3
Enable and choose the desired Warning
and/or Fail Delta E limits.

4
Choose whether the report is based on
all colors or only in gamut colors. De-
fault is checked on. 3

5
Clicking OK prompts to save the
ColorQPC settings. 4

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Tab III. Report Options

1
The Report Options can be saved as a
preset by clicking on the Add button or
deleted with the Delete button.
1
2
Company name and optional reporting
fields can be added to the report.
2
3
Clicking Ok prompts to save the
ColorQPC settings.

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ColorQPC Analyze – Comparing Measurement Sessions
Introduction
ErgoSoft ColorQPC™ Analyze provides quality departments and production managers with
an overall summary of color process control information from a given printer. ColorQPC
Analyze computes historical color results either for all print production jobs or for jobs run
over a specific time frame. This makes it possible to monitor color quality trends and certify
the color results from a given digital printing system. ColorQPC Analyze generates an on-
screen and HTML result that summarizes the overall color difference information and lists the
production runs that either passed or exhibited color errors.

ColorQPC Analyze is launched using menu Tools > Color & Special Features > ColorQPC
Analyze.

ErgoSoft ColorQPCTM 16
STEP I. Session Selection

1
Choose the ColorQPC Setting
from the pull-down menu that 1
you want to use for the current
ColorQPC Analyze session.

2
Select the Print Environment
for which you want to analyze 2
the ColorQPC Measure sessions.
Please note that only print 3
environments used with the selected
ColorQPC settings will be displayed.

3
Choose whether to analyze all
sessions or sessions within a 4
specific range of dates.
5

4
Clicking the button Paths op-
tionally saves data for the cur-
rent session in a specific location that is different from the standard location in the user data
folder. Please note that this setting only saves reports and results for the current session and
is not a global setting.

$
Click Next to continue.

ErgoSoft ColorQPCTM 17
STEP II. Multiple Session On-Screen Report

1
Highlights the Report informa-
tion.

Provides overall statistics for 1

2
all evaluated sessions.

3
Indicates the number of pass-
ing, marginal and failing ses-
sions. 2

Clicking Show Report displays 3

4
an HTML version of the report 4
(description see next chapter). 5

5
Modify settings makes it
possible to temporarily 6
change to the statistics and report
options (description see chapter “ColorQPC Setup Details”) for testing purposes.

6
Clicking Finish or Cancel closes the dialog.

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STEP III. HMTL Report
The HTML report pro-
vides an overall summary
of the ColorQPC
Analyze session statis-
tics. Please note that the
report is generated when
required and will be 1
overwritten if another
report is created. To
permanently save it, use
the Save or Print func-
tions in the web browser.

1
Report header: Dis- 2
plays information
about the ColorQPC
Analyze session accord-
ing to the ColorQPC Set-
tings.

2
Displays statistics
3
and number of
pass, warning or fail ses-
sions.

3
Displays the list of
colors printed. The
list includes the approx-
imate color as a square,
the name of the color
and Lab values defined in
the Swatch Book or Named Colors, the average Lab values from all evaluated colors, the av-
erage color difference (dE) between the expected and measured results, the standard devia-
tion in dE between the expected and measured results, and the analysis results for each color
in all the evaluated sessions.
The color coding used in the PWF columns designates whether or not a color passed the
evaluation:
Gray indicates out-of-gamut colors (Only shown if comparison done to expected values),
Green indicates specific color passed for all evaluated sessions,
Yellow indicates specific color was higher than the warning limit in one or more sessions,
and
Red indicates specific color exceeded the fail limit in one or more sessions.

ErgoSoft ColorQPCTM 19
Suggested Methods for using ColorQPC
Checking Profiles
For checking the color accuracy of profiles, use the following procedure:

Select the desired print environment. Ensure the desired ICC color profile is loaded in the
print environment.
Launch ColorQPC Measure.
Select a ColorQPC Setting. It is recommended to start with one of the standard default
settings (e.g. Digital Textile Standard Quality Barbieri LFP 8mm).
Edit the settings, if necessary, to work with a specific color measurement device.
Change reporting options if desired.
Create a new measurement session.
Follow the process in this document to print and measure the session.
Select the Compare with expected values option in the Compare Measurements dialog.
Create report to assess results.
If desired, repeat process with one of the high quality default ColorQPC Settings. Please
note that the inherent color repeatability of some printer, ink and media combinations
may be higher than the warning and fail limits in the high quality default settings.

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Process Control
The following procedure describes a method for maintaining color process control tolerances
with ColorQPC. This procedure assumes that the color profile in the print environment was
created for the printer, ink and media combination used for process control monitoring.

STEP I. Create Baseline Measurement Sessions

Measurement sessions are done over time to understand the color repeatability of the cur-
rent process.

Select the desired print environment.

Launch ColorQPC Measure.
Select a ColorQPC Setting. It is recommended to start with one of the standard default
settings (e.g. Digital Textile Standard Quality Barbieri LFP 8mm).
Edit the settings, if necessary, to work with a specific color measurement device.
Change reporting if desired.
Save the Baseline ColorQPC Setting and change name if desired.
Create a new measurement session.
Follow the process in this document to print and measure the session.
Select the Show measurements only option in the Compare Measurements dialog.
Finish and save session.
Repeat the process to create, print, and save measurement sessions with the same printer,
ink type, media type, Print Environment, and ColorQPC setting on a shift or daily basis for
at least 5 shifts or 5 days. Increasing the number sessions will provide more realistic infor-
mation about the process.

ErgoSoft ColorQPCTM 21
STEP II: Compute Baseline Warning and Fail Limit Statistics

Using the measurements from the Step I, the overall warning and fail limits can be computed
for the process.

Select the desired print environment as in Step I.

Launch ColorQPC Analyze.
Select ColorQPC Setting and print environment used in Step I.
Generate the Multiple Session Report.
Record at the average dE and standard deviation values in the report.
Compute a baseline warning limit by multiplying the standard deviation by 2 and adding
this value to the average dE. Compute a baseline fail limit by multiplying the standard dev-
iation by 3 and adding this value to the average dE.

For example:

Average dE = 4
Standard Deviation = 0.75
Warning Limit = 4 + (0.75*2) = 5.50
Fail Limit = 4 + (0.75*3.0) = 6.25

Close ColorQPC Analyze.

Please note that high average and/or standard deviation values may be a sign that either the
profile is incorrect or there are problems with the printing process. A high average value indi-
cates that colors are being printed incorrectly in every session while a high standard devia-
tion is a symptom that the printing process has a large degree of variability between sessions.

STEP III. Update Warning and Fail Limit Statistics in ColorQPC Settings

Select the print environment used in Step I.

Launch ColorQPC Measure.
Edit the ColorQPC Setting used in Step I. for the baseline measurement sessions.
Go to the Statistics tab. Enter the warning and fail limit values computed in Step II and
click OK.

ErgoSoft ColorQPCTM 22
STEP IV. Process Control

With the updated ColorQPC Setting, subsequent measurement sessions can now be com-
pared to the baseline statistics computed in Step III.

Create a new measurement session using the print environment and the ColorQPC Setting
modified in Step III.
Follow the process in this document to print and measure the session.
Select the Compare with expected values option in the Compare Measurements dialog.
Create report for the session. If the report results in a warning message, it is worthwhile to
check which colors are out-of-tolerance. A fail message would indicate a printing error or
unexpected change in the printing process.

ErgoSoft ColorQPCTM 23