The pair will present an integration of Alwan's Print Standardizer and Digital Information's InkZone software at next month's Graph Expo exhibition in Chicago that is said to allow users to print to the colour standards on every job.

According to DI, the combined system has been tailored to deliver the benefits of standardisation to SMEs who may otherwise have assumed that printing to standards was "a tedious and costly process that is out of their grasp or beyond their capabilities".

Alwan president Elie Khoury said: "Alwan guarantees ISO 12647-2 conformance of the printing press after few jobs and without dedicated calibration sessions. Alwan Print Standardizer and DI InkZone are self-learning systems and will optimise printing conditions for each paper type automatically till the press hits ISO 12647-2. Alwan also guarantees six to 12 months maximum ROI."

The InkZone/Print Standardizer integration is an automated closed-loop system that monitors and controls colour on press by focusing on the key areas of standardisation: printed solids, dot gain, grey balance and mid-tone spread.

DI's InkZone software closes the loop with the offset press, automatically adjusting the ink keys in order for the printed solids to match ISO or G7 targets, while Alwan's Print Standardiser closes the loop with the pre-press RIP, automatically adjusting compensation curves to achieve values for dot gain, Neutral Print Density Curves (NPDC), and mid-tone spread to match ISO 12647-2.

DI said that combining both systems would give printers a unique, fully automated, spectrophotometer-to-RIP-to-press-to-RIP closed-loop system, thereby enabling them to produce ISO 12647- and G7-compliant jobs without interruption.

The system also includes integrated production production conformance reports. Pricing depends on the press model and hardware technology; however, for the complete Alwan-DI software solution excluding press-side colour measurement instrument prices start from £19,000.