Progress in Packaging Gravure and Standard Viewing Conditions

The international standardisation body ISO TC 130 set important directions for the future of the printing industry at its recent meeting in Hong Kong. From 4 to 7 November 2025, international experts from the fields of terminology, prepress, printing, postpress, climate neutrality, materials and certification met to advance current and upcoming standardisation projects. The next meeting is scheduled to take place in Paris from 20 to 24 April 2026, while the venue for a further meeting in late 2026 has yet to be determined.

One of the key topics discussed was the standardisation of packaging gravure printing. While the existing standard ISO 12647-4 covers gravure printing for publication applications, it does not address the specific requirements of packaging production. The planned standard ISO 12647-10 aims to close this gap by providing practical process control specifications tailored to the particular technical and quality-related challenges of packaging gravure printing. As explained by Carlo Carnelli in Hong Kong, following the incorporation of all comments from the working draft phase, the document is now ready to enter the next stage of standardisation as a Committee Draft (CD). The evaluation of the CD ballot is expected to take place at the Paris meeting, after which the project could move on to the DIS stage (Draft International Standard).

Significant developments were also reported in the area of standard viewing conditions. ISO 3664 was published in the summer of 2025 and extends the existing viewing conditions P1 and P2 by adding two further print conditions with reduced or no UV content: P3 and P4. In particular, P3, corresponding to D50noUV, is gaining importance. Organisations such as Fogra regard P3 light sources as an ideal solution for press rooms, especially around viewing booths and cabinets used for critical colour and quality assessments. As modern viewing systems should support both D50 and D50noUV, luminaires optimised for P3 are expected to play a key role in future practice.

With these developments, ISO TC 130 once again underlines its central role in the international harmonisation of quality standards in the printing industry – from packaging and production processes to standardised evaluation under defined viewing conditions.