If after following all the steps described in our other articles, the standard verification is failed or scored below expected, you probably need to pay attention to some of the following issues:
The "media white" is too far from the reference one
This happens for standards where there is a rule concerning the media white. This can apply to "Side-by-Side" standards such as ISO12647-7 and Fogra PSD Absolute or for Media Relative Standards when the pre-rules are not passed (like Fogra PSD Media Relative).
If this issue occurs, there is nothing to do but to change the media.
The reference gamut is too big, compared to the printer gamut
This problem will be evident when you find differences between what the Gamut Viewer reference profile shows and the printer gamut.
It is likely that this problem appears because you have restricted the gamut too much in one of the following steps. Note that any solution will depend on whether you are able to or actually want to change any of these steps and, for any modification, you need to regenerate a profile. This problem can also come from the printer which cannot reproduce a large gamut
- Linearization step: if ink primaries have been set too low, try to increase it to at least the primary colorimetric references.
- Global ink limit step: if you chose to minimize the artifacts in high coverage colors and you miss some colors in the shadows, try to increase the global ink limit to cover the colorimetric shadow colors of the standard you want to pass.
- Profiling step: if in the Black separation options you chose a low max ink, try to increase that number.
The accuracy of the print is too low
It is possible to identify this problem by using the profile for simulation (check Use profile for simulation instead of Print and measure colors).
If you pass the standard in simulation mode, and not in real conditions, it means that the ICC profiles do not correctly predict the behavior of your printing setup.
In this case, there are several possible errors to check, but here are the most common ones:
- The spectrophotometer is not accurate enough. In this case, you should consider certifying it too.
- The printer is not stable enough.
- The profile is not sufficiently accurate because the references checked are far from the measurements used to make the profiles. In this case, the first thing to try is to measure a target with 3000 patches: if you have a very large gamut (it happens with NColor printers and proofers), you can consider making a linearization for the specific reference you are targeting. Note that doing this will significantly restrict your gamut, so we do not encourage you to do this unless you are an experienced user.