Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
drifted from the goal of education as to whittle the subject down to the
lowest common denominator of: How does color management benefit a
commercial print environment?
I still seek a definitive answer at this point in time.
ADR:
What has been the best part of using a CMS?
MO:
Predictability that is better than anything we had before. The
accuracy for the most part is truly amazing when you are dealing with
stable targets. Obviously, unstable devices are exactly what they are,
unpredictable. I can reduce internal rounds of color edits by half with a
good monitor and separation profile. Color management has taken much
of the guess work out of pairing an image with its intended device
because profiles edit each pixel individually, whereas a linear slider or
bounding curve binds the surrounding values. Due to this level of control,
CMS has given us the ability to cross-render color spaces to preserve the
color appearance between devices with amazing accuracy. By simply pro-
filing a device, I can establish a 90 percent accuracy between dissimilar
proofing devices such as a CMYK halftone contract proof versus a dither
dot ink-jet. The other 10 percent accuracy is a time-consuming quest that
is often painful and expensive to achieve, but doable. At some point in
the tweaking process to acquire that extra percentage, you'll realize the
threshold of your quest and accept the limits of the device(s).
ADR:
What's the worst part of using a CMS?
MO:
You just had to ask me that didn't you . . .
The development of said topic is far from finished. The current imple-
mentation of color management at the user application level is a thing
of beauty with an ugly evil twin sister. We now have the ability to give
meaning, many meanings to images, actually too easy, quite frankly, to
control file behavior to multiple devices via conversions. With that said,
because the user has the ability to discard the ICC profile, we still have
a free-for-all in trying to preserve the color appearance from the origi-
nators intent in the commercial sector.
Some industry professionals claim that forcing a file to retain the
profile is not the solution due to the fact that some work flows break
when profiles are entered into the mix at the RIP. Although this can be
a true statement at the current development of color management, being
able to easily discard the profile upon opening is truly a bad idea at the
user level. This open-ended ideology causes all kinds of the mass confu-
sion in the digital reproduction process for all parties involved. Because
of this, the average user can generate any blend of file freely and discard
the evidence, making the process of color consistency difficult at best.
We can only blame users to the extent of ignorance to a point, but
the simple fact that there is no true road map to color reproduction is
partly the fault of the graphic software developers. Than again, every-
