One of the hottest printing color management schem

One of the printing color management solutions

the Savior of color management

- LinoColor connects scanning, screen display, color separation output and color management of the printing process

color management has always been the most headache for desktop typesetters. This is because there are many different color treatments for an original from scanning input, screen display, printing samples with a printer to color separation output and printing. In the process of color processing, each device has different color processing and expression capabilities, and even the same device is provided by different manufacturers, or produced by the same manufacturer at different times, there will be differences in performance, Cause unpredictable color restoration. For example, the scanned image is red, while the screen display may be green; The imagesetter after color separation may not output 95% or more grayscale, and the color will fade after the final four-color printing into a newspaper. In order to control the color reproduction in the whole printing process, Linotype launched a universal color management scheme based on colorsync - LinoColor

I. linocolor

linocolor color management scheme is mainly divided into two parts. The first part is a software/hardware package for users to measure the profile of hardware devices by themselves, including view open, scan open and print open, which are used to measure the profile of displays, scanners and printers respectively. Due to the open design, these three software/hardware packages can produce profiles suitable for color sync and other color management schemes that comply with ICC standards, as well as unique color curves suitable for LinoColor

the second part is the core LinoColor software for color management. LinoColor itself is also a scanning software, which is suitable for tango, topaz, quickstep and other scanners of Linotype. But the most important thing is that it can put images in Photoshop, Photo CD and other formats for color management

the first step in using LinoColor is to make a profile for each hardware device you use

1. View open

view open is a software and hardware package used to measure the profile for the display, including software and an induction device connected to the Macintosh ADB

when using, start the view open software, adjust it to the position specified on the screen according to the screen display, and then start the test program. At this time, view open will add ambient light data to the color data on the screen, and then calculate the color deviation generated by the display, so as to calculate a profile

this profile only needs to be placed in the colorsync profiles folder of the preference folder in the machine system folder installed with cororsync 2.0 (the latest version is 2.1.1), and then set in the colorsync control panel

since all LinoColor software is only applicable to powermac when it is close to zero (such as when the valley value of unidirectional fatigue test is close to zero), if you want to measure the hardware profile of a 68K Mac, you need to move the hardware (such as the display) to powermac for measurement, and then copy the profile back to the original machine. It should be noted that ambient light will have an impact on view open. Therefore, it is best to put the monitor at the normal working position for measurement because of the low risk of establishing a recycled plastic particle factory. Every time the monitor needs to be moved to other places, the profile should be re measured

2. Scan open

scan open is a package used to measure scanner profile. In addition to software, it also includes photo paper and slide templates of Fuji, Agfa and Kodak, and a standard data file of template color

during measurement, users first scan these photo paper and slide templates into the computer, then read them with scan open software, and then read standard color data files. Scan open can automatically compare them, and then output a scanner ICC profile or a color curve specially used by LinoColor

3. Print open

print open is used to measure the profile for the output device. There are two versions, one is pure software, and the other is software plus colortron color analyzer

when using, first use print open to generate an output template file, which can optionally be clamped) select postscript format ㏄ ostscript printer or Imagesetter, or output TIFF format files for quickdraw printer. The document is also divided into CMYK, CMY and RGB. Users should choose a suitable printing device

after these template files are generated, they can be output by using the printing device. If the output device is a Phototypesetter, proofing should be carried out after the color separation film is output

after proofing, use the color analyzer to input the color of each grid in the proofing draft into print open software. After input, print open will compare the input data with the original template file to generate ICC profile or Linotype color curve

when outputting profiles, there are two options: printing and proofing. Printing profile is applicable to color separation equipment, while printing profile is applicable to proofing equipment

4. Linocolor

linocolor is the core of the whole color management. From here, we can predict the future effect of image files

before using, first set the monitor profile in the preference of LinoColor. After that, the image file can be directly scanned. When using Heidelberg's own scanner. For example, in tango, the profile of the scanner can be selected during scanning, and the scanning program can be corrected at the same time

users can also insert Photoshop files, digital camera images or photo CD images

if the user has two Macintosh and both are equipped with LinoColor, the images on both MAC monitors will display the same color due to the presence of monitor profile! If the user's customer is also equipped with LinoColor and the appropriate monitor profile, they will also see the same image color

if you don't scan the file in LinoColor, you can also put a CMYK file into it and convert it into lab format for use by LinoColor. When inserting, use some electronic support: KONE electronics, Shanghai Mold Association, Midea, PolyOne, stauber, sharp, Tyco Electronics, Shure electronics. Users need to provide the profile data used in the image production, such as scanner profile

in the print process setup in LinoColor, you can set how the image will be output. For example, in the print profile prepared by the user with print open, the image in the display will immediately simulate the effect of color separation or printing of the image in the future due to the influence of print profile

if users think the color of the image is bad, they can use the built-in color correction function of LinoColor to correct the color. In time, what is displayed is always the effect after printing in the future

after completion, you can save the file in TIFF or EPS format, or directly separate colors in LinoColor. In its print process setup, you can also enter the profile of proof process, which determines the method you will use to proofing customers. Some high-end proofing methods have been built in here, such as 3M match print. However, if you use proofing devices such as inkjet printers, you can also use print open to make your own profile

proof process is set to inform LinoColor of the color performance of the proofer. When the user selects the function of proof, LinoColor will modify the data sent by LinoColor to the proofer according to the characteristics of the proofer, so as to simulate the effect of real printing in the future on the proofer

for a long time, when using the proofing machine to print some documents for special printing (such as newspapers), the proofing effect is often lost because the effect is very different from the printed products. However, with LinoColor, users don't use the proofing machine to print documents, but use the proofing machine to print out the effect of the final printed matter

second, what if there is no LinoColor

if there is no LinoColor, color sync can barely achieve the effect of color management, which requires the use of the ICC profile prepared by the LinoColor package. In terms of software, you can use Photoshop or other software that supports colorsync, such as PageMaker 6.5 (quark Xpress will have built-in colorsync control after version 4.0). To use Photoshop, first download three plug ins for Photoshop 3 and 4 from Apple's colorsync web site

after installing this plug in, tiff with colorsync profile... Will be selected in Photoshop file import (or acquire). Here, you can input the source profile of the image (if it is scanned, enter the profile of the scanner used; if it is a computer-generated image, such as 3D image, select the profile of the display) and target profile (what equipment will be output in the future, such as imagesetter or inkjet printer)

at this time, the input image will automatically separate colors and add color correction function, but the completed image can only be used for output, not for screen proofreading

if you want to predict the effect after printing in the future, you must save the file number first, and then import it again. But this time, the source profile will be the profile of the printer, because the user has processed the file before. The target profile is the display profile for display. After such reprocessing, the effect after printing will be simulated

linocolor cooperates with colorsync to provide a feasible color management scheme for desktop publishing