Certification

Certification

Certifying Jobs in PrintFactory

Certifying jobs in PrintFactory ensures that printed colors meet specific standards, whether proofing industry standards or a printer's calibrated baseline (commonly referred to as the Golden State). Certification validates the output’s quality and consistency, providing confidence in color accuracy and production reliability.


Proofing Certification vs. Golden State Certification

PrintFactory supports two distinct types of certification, depending on the selected variant:

  1. Proofing Certification

    • Achieved using the Proofing variant.
    • Aligns the job to proofing industry standards such as ISO 12647-7
    • This certification ensures the job matches a reference or normalization space, meeting stringent color accuracy requirements.

  2. Golden State Certification

    • Achieved using any other variant: Visual Match, Perceptual, Colorimetric, or Ecosave.
    • Validates the job against the printer profile’s calibrated baseline (Golden State).
    • Focuses on consistency within the printer's operating conditions rather than external industry standards.
To pass certifications like G7 or FOGRA PSD, the Colorimetric or Proofing variants should be used, alongside DeviceLink tuning.

How to certify a job:

1. You print a job with a Ugra/Fogra, ISO, IDEAlliance or PrintFactory control strip, these are available in the Job labels section of Layout/Workflow/RIP queue. The certification strip will be printed with the job.



2. You measure the values and compare these values with the tolerances allowed by the standard. To do this, wait until the job has completed printing, then right click the job in your RIP and select Certify Job, or scan the QR code.



3. It will produce a certification report which you can save as a PDF, or read the QR code to access via the Cloud

4. You can also print a summary on a small label, which you can then attach to the proof.


Tolerances

The default tolerances in PrintFactory are set to ISO 12647-7, ensuring compliance with industry benchmarks. However, tighter customer-specific tolerances can be defined through the Custom Tolerance settings. These settings allow precise adjustments for substrate, ΔE thresholds, gray balance, and more. Users can configure primary and secondary tolerances, including specific ΔE and ΔH values, with options for both average and maximum deviations. Advanced controls like selecting the dE calculation method (e.g., CIE 2000) and limiting measurements to in-gamut colors are also available.