The incompatibility with the 3G network has been a black mark on the iPhone ever since it was introduced nearly a year ago. Users expect the fastest data network available for use on their high end gadgets, with phones no longer being an exception. Computer processers that exceed most users’ needs, more megapixels than the average shooter would ever know what to do with and even shoes with wireless connections to monitor exercise. Bigger, better and faster are all expectations that are regularly associated with consumer goods, but what about enterprise applications?
Widen was recently ranked among the Top 10 Premedia Leaders of America as the 8th largest provider of premedia services by sales volume, according to a 2008 study by Graphic Arts Monthly and The Association of Graphic Solutions Providers (IPA).
Widen made the list of firms whose premedia sales are greater than 50% of total sales. Within the >50% categorization, the market size is $1,340,276,000, primarily dominated by the top 3 providers. Widen’s share of this market is 1.2% using data reported in this list. However, isolating just prepress service providers whose primary market is the Corporate space, Widen owns 42.6% market share.
Premedia services are defined to include: preflighting, proofing, color retouching, color separations, image assembly, platemaking, photography, data management, workflow and other media production.
For the full list, visit: http://www.graphicartsonline.com/article/CA6549650.html
For more info about the IPA, visit: http://www.ipa.org/
Swinging with the X-Rite Munki
If you are a designer or photographer that is forced to "monkey" around with color on a regular basis then you may want to check out X-Rite's new product, ColorMunki... http://www.colormunki.com/
ColorMunki is a device about the size and shape of a tape measure that is capable of calibrating monitors or projectors, creating ICC profiles for printers, and capturing and communicating color. The user selects the device function by rotating a dial on the side of the unit.
At only $500, the ColorMunki is a low-cost, entry-level spectrophotometer aimed at the photography and design markets. It will quickly calibrate and profile a computer display or projector used for presentations or slide shows. It creates ICC profiles for desktop or large-format printers using only 50 -100 color patches, which it is able to quickly scan in about one minute. Painless monitor to printer agreement is promised by telling the ColorMunki to “match my printer to my display” as the user is guided through the profiling process for both the display and printer.
Designers will go "ape" over the color sampling and communication functions of ColorMunki. The user can grab color from almost any reflective surface and build a color library that can be shared with others or used in many popular applications like the Adobe Creative Suite. With ColorMunki's PrintSafe checking capabilities, you can preview your color palettes under different lighting conditions. You can even extract a color palette from any image.
The ColorMunki is not a device that serious color professionals will likely want to use, as it does not do things like interface with RIPS for calibration or linearization. Color geeks will want to stay with devices like X-Rite's Eye-One Photo/Print ($1600) or the iSis ($5000) along with ProfileMaker or Monaco software for creating very accurate ICC profiles and maintaining calibration on output devices.
But if your goal is swinging through the jungle of pleasing color without getting your fur ruffled or spending a lot of money, then the ColorMunki is for you. With this product, X-Rite will no doubt get color management tools into the hands of many more people. And I think that is a good thing. Besides, who doesn't love monkeys?
Mark
The Painted Desert Part 2
Notes from the 2007 PIA/GATF Color Management Conference
Goexplore with Pantone
In 1963 Pantone introduced us to the Pantone Matching System. Since then, the system has been used by everybody from designers to printers to ink and dye manufacturers. It has been used in the automotive, home improvement and textile industries among others.
In our corner of the industrialized world, the PMS system allowed designers, ink manufacturers and printers to speak the same language when it came to color. It was the Rosetta Stone of the printing industry.
But Pantone had its share of critics over the years. They wanted a better system with more colors, laid out in a more intuitive - chromatic fashion, incorporating new technology advances.
So last September, Pantone came out with the PANTONE Goe™ System. It is a system that comprises both print and software components that allow designers to specify and effectively communicate color on a level that PMS has not provided.
Although the Goe system has almost twice as many colors (2,058) as PMS (1,100), they use only ten base inks as opposed to the fourteen base inks in the original Pantone Matching System. There are more neutrals and more in-between colors. New colors were selected because they filled out color choices available, they were distinguishable from each other and were attainable on press. Only two colorants are mixed at any one time in addition to black and clear in order to achieve all the Goe colors. This helps to reduce metamerism and color shifting.
Speaking at the PIA/GATF Color Management Conference last December, Pantone's Vice President of Advanced Color Technology, Andy Hatkoff, outlined the new system which includes:
- PANTONE GoeGuide™ A fan-guide, similar to PMS swatch guides,containing all new Goe System colors, arranged in a logical numerical progression - seven colors per page, each identified by a unique number.
- PANTONE GoeSticks™Two volume set of adhesive-backed color chips that can be arranged temporarily on a “Palette Playground” and then, when a palette is decided on, stuck permanently on palette cards for future reference.
- myPANTONE™ Software that makes choosing and exploring color in the PANTONE Goe System easy, and analyzes images to produce custom palettes, which can also be shared with the world via the myPANTONE.com online community. Kind of a "MySpace" for color geeks. "What's your color? I'm 116-2-4C! Like, OMG! Jenny, my old BFF is so PMS235! DYKWIM?"
The Goe System's myPantone palette software gives users the flexibility to work with Goe color data in sRGB, Adobe 98 RGB or L*a*b* so clearly the system is designed for use in cross-media environments.
The myPantone palette software allows the user to define, explore and save palettes of sampled colors.
Hatkoff was careful to stress that the current PMS system will not go away. "The Goe system was not intended to replace the internationally accepted line of PMS products." he said.
Pantone is selling the complete Goe System for $499. Or you can purchase GoeSticks with myPantone software for $369, and GoeGuide with myPantone software for $129.
My Take
The Goe system is being supported by many software programs and output devices, but it remains to be seen just how quickly it will be adopted. It is a better system, but many people are creatures of habit. I meet a lot of people that still refer to digital photography as "film". Will people "Goe" to the Goe system as their old PMS swatch books need replacing? And once it is more ubiquitous, will Pantone, in fact, continue to support the PMS system years from now? Either way, right or wrong, I'm sure Pantone will continue to have their share of detractors.
The Painted Desert
Notes from the 2007 PIA/GATF Color Management Conference
The PIA/GATF Color Management Conference concluded it's four day run on December 11. It was a record event this year as over 400 color geeks converged on the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs resort tucked into the mountains on the North side of Phoenix.
I used to say that you could always tell when the Color Management Conference was in town because the population of balding, middle-aged white guys would go way up. But that's not the case anymore. Now you will find younger attendees at the beginning of their careers and many more women along with all the chrome domes. Which is a testament to not only the popularity of the conference itself, but also the pervasiveness of color management in general. Printing, prepress, creative, photography... You can't swing a dead cat around a production workflow without hitting an ICC profile of some sort these days. And no matter how hard you try, you cannot turn off color management in Photoshop. But that's the subject of a future blog.
Standard Talk
Every Color Management Conference has several sessions that deal with industry standards, and this year was no exception. The conference kicked off on Saturday with a day dedicated to G7. G7 is not really a standard per se, but rather is a revolutionary new methodology that outlines a process to calibrate a press or proofing system based on spectrophotometry (colormetric data) for gray balance instead of traditional densitometric (dot gain/TVI) methods. More and more printers are using G7 to control the color on their presses. It helps them print more consistently with less waste. At least this is true in North America. Europe and Asia have a different take on G7...
The European Perspective
One of the two keynote presentations at the conference was from Darrian Young, founder of Color and Image Consulting in Castellon, Spain, and member of the ECI (European Color Initiative). He gave his opinion of the G7 movement from the European perspective. He essentially argued against any competing standard such as G7, asking, "If a method is shown to work better than the current standard, does that warrant or justify creating a second standard?". Young said that the European viewpoint is no. "Any improvements should be made to the standard, in order to avoid confusion, incompatibilities, and ambiguity. Not against it." He added. Young emphasized that the current methods of controlling color on press via TVI (tone value increase, or dot gain) is specified by ISO (International Organization of Standards), and it is therefore a necessary conclusion that TVI is an international standard.
Young claimed that time and money spent developing the G7 method would have been better spent on resolving issues like optical brighteners in paper, FM screening, varnish, etc. He concluded by saying that Europeans and Americans should work together to merge existing methods if possible, or search for common ground - one standard.
Donkeys vs. Elephants
After Young concluded his presentation, he received a standing ovation from about half the audience. I felt like I was watching a session of Congress on CSPAN and all the democrats just got up to applaud some other democrat from Iowa after his speech on universal health care, while the republicans watch silently. Actually, he did get a good round of applause from the entire audience. His argument, no matter what side of the fence you come down on, was well presented.
Afterwards, a number of audience members had questions or comments for Darrian Young. Among them was Don Hutcheson, president of Hutchcolor LLC and well known speaker on color management. He is also the inventor of the G7 method. Don argued several points including that G7 is in fact based on existing ISO standards. Don later joked that he felt like he was the person that touched off WWIII.
My Take
What Don Hutcheson and the G7 method has done for the printing industry is a very good thing. Calibrating and controlling a printing press based on colormetric data makes sense. It reduces waste, and a G7 calibrated press will be more likely to match new SWOP and GRACoL certified proofing systems. Clearly other agree with that. Many large, progressive printing companies like Quad Graphics and RR Donnelley have already implemented G7, and many more are learning the process.
One of the most dangerous things that can be said in any business is, "That's the way we've always done it." If we don't continually look for process improvement, then we are not moving forward. If there weren't those that looked for better ways of doing things, we might still be printing with hot lead. And I don't think that TVI or gray balance would even matter much then...
That being said, there should be a concerted effort to try to unify the global printing industry. Many US companies outsource work to Europe and Asia among other places. The more we have true global standards for things like substrates, ink sets and calibration methods, the better off we will all be. But hey- we can't even get our electrical plugs to look the same or agree on what side of the car the steering wheel should be on, so maybe all hope is lost. As Rodney King once said, "Can't we just all get along?"
Mark
What’s your favorite color?
I’ll bet you didn’t say white, did you?
Well, why not? You don’t think of white as a color?
Actually, pure white contains all colors. Well, kind of. It’s really equal wavelengths of red, green and blue light. And color is only possible with light. So if you say white is your favorite color, the truth is that your favorite color is in there somewhere. You may have thought that white is the absence of all color, as in paper white. Well, that depends on if you are talking about additive or subtractive color theory. I'll get into more of that in a future blog.
By experimenting with prisms, English physicist Sir Isaac Newton discovered that white light can be broken down into its component colors.
One time back in my college days, some friends of mine had just moved into an apartment and asked me to help them paint all their walls the only color they were allowed to paint them - white. Of course, this would eventually turn into a white-themed party (anything becomes an excuse for a party when you are 22 years old). Other than the white t-shirts and gym socks everybody was wearing; the cauliflower, marshmallows and vanilla ice cream everyone was eating; and the Barry White, Whitesnake, and Average White Band music that was blasting from the speakers (I’m sure The White Stripes would have been big at that party had they been around back then), what I remember most about that party was that it was rather bland and boring.
Some people say variety is the spice of life. I say color is the spice of life. I love good black and white photography - artists like Ansel Adams have done some incredible work. But color has IMPACT! Color surrounds us. Color inspires us. Color infuriates us. Color promotes passion and love. Color calms and sedates us. Think of a deep blue sea, a soft red rose, or a lush green forest. These colors are also associated with other senses... You can smell the ocean thinking about the blue sea, feel the thorns on the Red rose, and almost taste the mossy foliage of the lush green forest, just by thinking of their color.
If a tree falls in that lush green forest, but there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? You may have heard that question before. What if there is no light in that same forest. Do the trees have any color? If there is no one around to see the trees, do they have any color? Does the color green even exist? And what is the meaning of life anyway? Okay, sorry, that’s a different blog. I’m getting too deep here. But the short answer is no. Without light there is no color. The sensation that we call color only exists in our minds. Color is really an event that happens between three participants -an object, a light source to illuminate that object, and a human observer. I say human because animals see color differently. Certain mammals can see into adjacent portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, like infrared or ultraviolet. Which is probably why my dachshund barks at things I clearly do not see. Or maybe she is just a yappy wiener dog. That’s probably it.
Because color is such a complex phenomenon, it should come as no surprise that trying to mass-produce it with any degree of accuracy can be a very tall order. Color is both art and science. Color management tries to take some of the subjective “art” out of color reproduction, and apply some science to it. And it actually does it pretty well. Color reproduction is not rocket science, but it’s not an episode of Jerry Springer either. Actually, it’s probably a lot closer to rocket science than you might think. And that makes color management very important.
In upcoming blogs, I will try to de-bunk some common color myths, explain more about color theory and color management, and dive into topics like proper viewing conditions, soft proofing, ink jet proofing, Photoshop color issues, what’s new at Widen Enterprises, and how to build a better taco. Actually, leave out the taco thing. That’s not rocket science. It’s pretty easy to make tacos. Although I’m sure somebody has a blog about it somewhere in cyberspace.
If the study of color, art and the human vision system is as interesting to you as it is to me, you might like to read a book called “Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing” written by Margaret S. Livingstone. She is a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. She has studied light, color and how different regions of the brain process visual information in parallel and in different ways because of their physiological characteristics. It is very interesting reading. She also has a presentation online at:
http://www.nyas.org/ebriefreps/ebrief/000500/presentations/livingstone/player.html
My next several blogs will cover news from the upcoming PIA/GATF Color Management Conference in Phoenix from December 8-11.
And remind me to write about the dark, dull party I attended in 1991 where I ate black olives and heard music from Black Sabbath, The Black Crowes, and Frank Black. Yawn.
Mark
