Color Management--Discussing Today's Color

The call for open, device-independent color management is driving more and more prepress workflows. Are closely woven color management tools on the way out? Is ICC compliance the best route for color control?

BY MARIE RANOIA ALONSO

An overall ease of use and a simplification of the process; these may be the two strongest desires driving color management for any prepress professional advocating some sort of consistent, cross-platform, color management standard. Is International Color Consortium (ICC) compliance the answer? Are new, device-independent color management software solutions the key to unlocking color bottlenecks?

Recently, Printing Impressions posed these and other questions to a sampling of prepress technology providers. Their responses create a landscape of the color management situation—a landscape ready for continued cultivation and refinement.

Prinergy Process Control
Steve Prescesky, product manager, Creo Products: Printers have always strived to deliver accurate and consistent color. This task has been made easier with the process control provided by CTP digital imaging coupled with desktop color management software. This combination enables printers, as well as their clients, to enjoy the benefits of predictable, high-quality color. To complete the picture, prepress workflows must embrace advanced color management engines, process control and bring content creators into the manufacturing process.

End-to-end color management begins at the content creator's DTP system and ends on the signed-off press sheet. Robust color management engines, such as the industry standard Linocolor, are embedded in Apple's ColorSync software. Accurate color measurement instruments and profiling tools, which were once only available for lab use, are now very affordable.

Despite all this innovation, printers don't expect a simple jump into a full, open-loop color managed workflow where all color problems disappear instantly. They realize that they must start with a solid building block of imaging consistency and calibrated output, integrated with a suitable prepress workflow.

Prinergy, the new page-based workflow management software from Creo and Heidelberg, is equipped with integrated color management. The system is automated and can track input and output color profiles, perform color conversion and manage output seamlessly to a variety of devices.

With Prinergy, color management by Linocolor can occur in two stages according to the needs of the job at hand. The first is refining where color management can be employed to color-separate files in the manner best suited for the press. This results in an industry standard, PDF digital master that can be viewed and even edited by the original content creator. The second stage of color management in Prinergy is color matched proofing, which applies device-link profiles to allow the proof to simulate final presswork.

Process control is fundamental to successfully implementing color management. Proofers, monitors and final output devices must be kept in a consistent and calibrated state. This important first step, coupled with the right workflow, allows the printer to begin using color management. With training and coordination, printers, prepress professionals and graphic designers are able to work together with common tools and documents to meet the desires for faster production cycles and more predictable results in the pressroom.

Imation Credits ColorSync
David R. Mayberry, product specialist, Imation: Trends in color management today point to Apple; Apple's ColorSync currently represents the only viable operating-system-level framework within which users can implement an International Color Consortium, or ICC-based, color management workflow. Today, about 26 percent of the graphic arts community uses ColorSync. Most prepress and printing organizations use device-dependent workflows.

Evolving color management means giving control and creating a standard that is easy to execute and can be trusted by all those involved. Component- or tool-based approaches are currently successful in high-end environments, but success in cross-workflow color management will require a more "plug-and-play" solution.

In August, we launched the Imation Color Fidelity Module (CFM), a color management software tool that provides Apple ColorSync users with dramatically improved accuracy in color transformations, particularly for CMYK workflows. The Imation CFM sets out to bring the economies and cross-platform flexibility of the ICC to graphic arts production professionals for the first time.

Based on tests conducted by the Graphic Arts Technical Foundation, Rich Adams, GATF research scientist, reported that the Imation CFM is the first ICC-compatible color management module that retains black-channel information when converting from RGB to CMYK mode, a feature that will undoubtedly prove valuable to printers who use CMYK files in a color-managed environment.

The Imation CFM uses gamut mapping and "smart" technology to provide high accuracy for RGB and CMYK transformations, and is the first color management module to solve the "black channel" issue in critical CMYK color transformations.

Today, a color management module transforms digital color from one color space—typically a device such as a color proofer or monitor to the next—a function that often compromises the color integrity of a digital image. For example, many traditional color management modules will loose "K" or "black channel" information when transforming CMYK images.

A Pantone Report
Richard Herbert, executive vice president, Pantone: As the landscape of printing technologies continues to change, new workflows, equipment and tools are required to accurately and effectively deliver the right product to the customer. The proliferation of the Internet and, soon, broadband information delivery on a personalized basis, will force the "ink-on-paper" industry to adapt production methods to compete with these other personal, just-in-time technologies. The obvious print solution is on-demand, variable data printing.

Controlling color is no longer the exclusive responsibility of the printing expert. Further, the need to use content in many different mediums is the rule, not the exception. The responsibility for the accuracy and the intended outcome of a created piece falls squarely on the creator's shoulders. Reasonable care must be given to ensure that the color intent migrates from concept to a variety of outputs. It's this "variety" that will cause workflows to change and new tools to be employed.

At Pantone, we are committed to the development and support of digital color control technologies from scanner and monitor calibration through printer calibration and process control.

Pantone's two key systems for the graphic communicator, the PANTONE Matching System and PANTONE Hexachrome were specifically designed with uncompromising color in mind.

No matter what you are creating content for, the best way to ensure color accuracy in print space and cyberspace is to identify an object with a PANTONE color.

Better yet, if possible, always include PANTONE color chips with your artwork—even if it's a digital print or disk—to ensure that there is absolutely nothing left up to interpretation. In the case where solid color reproduction is not possible, such as four-color digital presses, Pantone provides color chips that demonstrate the best expectation for the PANTONE color reproduced in CMYK.

When it comes to controlling color in images where specifying an individual PANTONE color may not be possible, Pantone developed Hexachrome. We developed Hexachrome for two extremely important reasons. First, we wanted to make absolutely certain that as technology advanced the cause of short-run, on-demand printing, the ultimate goal of high-quality color in printing did not get compromised.

It is Pantone's clear intent not to rest until we see adoption of multi-unit digital presses become commonplace. Print has always had two key advantages: portability and quality. Now, with digital printing there is a third: flexibility. No need to compromise quality here.

Second, Hexachrome provides traditional printing with a distinct visual advantage over the Internet. Achieving accurate color in mass communications will always be crucial to manufacturers who sell goods where color matters.

Let's face it, consumers are flocking to the Web in geometric proportions, and manufacturers clearly see the immediate benefit to investing in electronic communications for promotional purposes and e-commerce. Hexachrome provides manufacturers with a reason to stay with print for their most critical and high quality communication needs.