As a part of its mission to strengthen the printing industry by paying attention to human resource issues, IppStar with a little help As a part of its mission to strengthen the printing industry by paying attention to human resource issues, IppStar with a little help from its friends is organising a certificate level Colour Management Course. The course will be held at the Don Bosco Technical Institute in Delhi and at the Department of Print Engineering at Anna University in Chennai. “We have called our long-time associate Paul Lindstrom, who teaches colour management at Malmo University in Sweden to be the main course instructor. Paul has over the years done a lot of scientific testing and evaluation of digital cameras, scanners and digital presses for his articles in AGI and Digital Dots special publications. His articles on colour management in the Digital Dots Technology Guides have kept up with increasing availability of hardware and software that combined with a systematic approach, good training and some care can make this technology work for printers and bring them the benefits of their investments in CtP and new presses,” says Naresh Khanna.

“IppStar was founded for this reason in 2001, because the industry is fragmented and largely unable to act together positively. Slowly, the industry is beginning to support our efforts in carrying out our missions in research, training, environment and safety. In any case it will be impossible to build the Indian Print Brand and compete with China unless we start upgrading our talented human resources and using them properly. How can we expect to show the world our understanding and skills in colour printing without creating a vast reservoir of trained and certified colour management personnel?” he adds.

Paul Lindstrom will share some of the instruction and practical work at the hands on course with Pongtorn “Tom” Juntarawatt from Gretag-Macbeth. Tom is a veteran of the IPP Tenth Conference where he showed the Gretag-Macbeth solution at a practical demonstration session that included solutions from several vendors. Infrastructure for the course will include four testing instruments and profiling software from Gretag-Macbeth, both Mac and PC workstations, desktop scanner, server and inkjet proofers. The establishments also contain other equipment such as imagesetters and printing presses for demonstrating the entire colour management loop and for test printing. The textbook that will be given to all candidates is Understanding Color Management by Dr A Sharma. This book is also available from the Ipp Book Club at www.ippstar.com.

Another aim of IppStar and the course is to strengthen the print training institutions around the country. At each of the two courses there will be five free seats for qualified and committed faculty from schools and colleges in the region. In addition there will be free seats for students nominated by the institutions where the courses are being held. Over a period of time, IppStar wants to encourage and help the colleges and schools to strengthen their faculties' knowledge, skill and experience and to help them develop useful and credible associations with industry and institutions around the world.

Course fees are Rs 25,000. IppStar and Indian Print Export Forum members will be charged Rs 20,000 per candidate. All candidates will be colour vision tested and only those who pass the final exam will be given colour management certificates. Others will be given a participation certificate. The course will take place over five full working days, from July 10 to 14 in Delhi and from July 17 to 21 in Chennai. The fees only cover the course material and lunch and coffee. No accommodation is provided as a part of the course fees. However, IppStar will try and help out-of-town candidates with appropriate accommodation.