Summing up TAGA 2007

Well... I had a nice time myself. The hotel bar was pretty good and I hit Pittsburgh on Saint Patrick's day!

Seriously now:
I would love to see more attendants next year in SF. We were about 170 people. We can be more. There are lots to learn. Technical people can have a serious benefit in attending this meeting: Networking! Not so much in terms of making friends, but in terms of meeting the people that can provide an answer to their questions when the need arises. As Mr. B. Blom put it, throughout his years at TAGA that was the main benefit: the people! Well, you got to be a printing nerd too to enjoy it.

The students were an enthusiastic crowd as well (getting lost in conversations about density at the bar is absolutely awesome). Compliments on Cal Poly on winning the brochure award - of which I am particularly proud since my company happened to design and produce their packages; which I only became aware at the conference, mainly because I am knee deep in our litho department at work.

Top topics of what I have retained:
#1 There is a lot of research going on on RFID. I hope it works out.
#2 There is another definite tendency to move to colorimetry for process calibration, and why not control. It shall need a huge effort on technical and managerial level, but it can work and provide solutions were density fails short (workflow solutions and color portability, as well as spot colors I would say on top of my head).
#3 I retain the research on the low VOCs. It is important to be prepared for it... if possible!
#4 The discussions and presentations on colorimetry issues and ICC profiling (including mine) however -I have to say- are falling short of the research that is going on in imaging and color conferences. We cannot expect the printing industry to lead in this field, but we can definitely expect to publish some research on the applied elements of ICC profiling and colorimetry for the printing processes.
#4a. we need to work on color difference equations
#4b. we need to establish a linear relationship between IFT, density, dot gain and CIELAB.
#5 Paper companies were criticised -and forgiven nonetheless since it is realized that they are bound to price demands- for UV brighteners, standardization of white point, and to a lesser extend paper properties that affect printability for various processes.
#6 G7... well... read previous post!
#7 Process variation issues discussed and researched and found awful. Well: welcome to litho... and as professor Chung would say: variation is the 'nature of the beast'. Pretty much: 0.10 density units is something very common as natural variation, and it results in about 5.0 DEab... reminding me of William Burroughs novels, where drunk and angry press-boys wonder on saliva and the loose limbs of grey crocodiles and pink elephants (huh?!?)

Farewell,
-D