Musings on color management, CHROMiX products and services and other relevant topics.

Friday, November 18, 2016

PIA Color Conference going to be a great event

This year's Color Conference is taking place Dec 3-6 at the Pointe Hilton Squaw Peak in Phoenix.

CHROMiX will be there en force again this year (we've attended and presented every year since the conference's inception), with Steve Upton, Rick Hatmaker and Pat Herold all in attendance.

Steve Upton is serving on the advisory board for the event and is also presenting a session called "Density Today: Avoid or Embrace? Both!". You might think "Density? Really?" Yes! In today's modern, colorimetric, G7 world, density still shows up regularly. It's VERY important to know when it's a bad idea and why, even when your most important customer continues to swear by it.

Also, this year's conference is Curve4's coming-out party. CHROMiX and HutchColor are readying the fourth major release of the world's de-facto standard G7 calibration tool. We'll be demonstrating the integrated measurement capabilities in our booth (driving Konica Minolta, Techkon and X-Rite hardware) and serving up all the juicy details at our vendor session. Between the full-featured Verify functions, powerful enhancements to Calibration, and a new Blend tool, Curve4 is an indispensable tool for G7 implementation.

So come by the show! Airfares are cheap, hotels are reasonable and if you contact us directly we can give you a super special secret code that knocks $100 off the entrance fee.

For more info, go here






Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Curve4 VERIFY release brings full G7 Master verification with a clear graphical display


Release: Sept 14, 2016

Seattle WA: Curve4 VERIFY release brings full G7 Master verification with a clear graphical display.


CHROMiX and HutchColor today released Curve4 VERIFY, the first component of the anticipated followup to the industry-standard G7 Calibration and Verification toolset.

"Curve4 VERIFY fills an overdue need for an affordable, full-function tool to check G7 Master test prints before they are submitted" said HutchColor's Don Hutcheson, creator of G7 and co-author of the G7 Master Certification specification.

Idealliance expanded and revamped the G7 Master Certification process in 2015. Until now there's been an absence of straight-forward verification tools that are appropriate for any user from brand owners and print buyers through to the most demanding print providers.

Curve4's VERIFY tool provides clear results that are precisely engineered to confirm eligibility for G7 Master Certification and verify high quality printing and proofing.

"Expert users can create pre-set References for any combination of G7 Master parameters, including G7 Grayscale, Targeted or Colorspace, all standard G7-based CRPCs, SCCA On or Off, NativeCMY, Production or Proof tolerances and even G7 Screenprint.", continued Hutcheson. "The bonus Proof verification feature allows non-technical print buyers to quickly and easily check the accuracy of supplied proofs with a simple hand-held measuring device."

Flexibility:

Measurements can be obtained from several sources including files, direct measurement or 1-click download from Maxwell, CHROMiX's cloud-based color monitoring system. A variety of measurement devices are directly integrated into the tool, including Barbieri Spectro LFP, Konica Minolta FD-9, Techkon SpectroDrive, and X-Rite i1Pro, i1iO, and i1iSis for hand-measured or fully-automated measurement. Curve4 streamlines measurement by using targets created by Barbieri Chart Generator, X-Rite i1Profiler, ColorPort, and MeasureTool and also provides full access to M0-M3 illuminant options, reflective / transmissive modes, aperture size and single or multiple measurements per patch (as the instrument supports)

"Curve4 VERIFY gains powerful measurement and SmartTarget technologies from Maxwell, allowing unprecedented flexibility with zero configuration." explained Steve Upton, President of CHROMiX, "The measurement tools also inherit from our years of Maxwell development so they are streamlined, stable and have some great features. One such feature is the newly-introduced MemoryScan function that stores the position of a target (for iO, LFP and KM FD-9) and quickly scans other targets placed in the same position."

Curve4 VERIFY accepts any target combination to create verifications. The G7 ColorSpace compliance test, for example, requires patches from both the P2P and IT8 targets. Users can bring multiple targets into the VERIFY tool and the required patches are automatically extracted for easy & quick reporting.

Availability:

Curve4 VERIFY is available immediately. The full release, including CALIBRATE and BLEND tools, is expected to ship near the end of this year.

Upgrades are available for previous Curve owners.

CHROMiX and HutchColor will both be at SGIA this week (see us in the Barbieri booth #1499 on Thursday) and also at GraphExpo in Orlando later this month. Please contact us directly for a demonstration or with any questions.


Please go to http://www.chromix.com/curve4 for more information

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HutchColor, LLC.

In 1995 Don Hutcheson formed the first ICC color management consultancy. Since then HutchColor, LLC has trained many of the world’s top printers, publishers, photographers, agencies and designers and pioneered such techniques as HiFi color, digital proofing, RGB workflows and soft proofing.  While chairman of the IDEAlliance GRACoL® committee (2004-7) Hutcheson invented the IDEAlliance G7® method.  G7 has revolutionized the printing industry and made standardized printing and proofing easier and more accessible to thousands of users worldwide.  HutchColor continues to teach G7, color management and standardized printing and proofing to a wide range of clients. For more information go to www.hutchcolor.com.

CHROMiX Inc.

CHROMiX, Inc., the creator of ColorThink, ColorThink Pro, Maxwell, the co-creator of IDEALink Curve, Curve2, and Curve3, was founded in 1998 to provide technical services and products to businesses in content-production industries. CHROMiX dedicates years of industry experience to improving color management and image fidelity, and combines an excellent suite of tools, including its own popular ColorThink products. With customers, dealers and partners in over 90 countries, CHROMiX is uniquely qualified to serve the imaging industries. More information is available at www.chromix.com.


Trademarks: IDEALink, G7® and GRACoL® are registered trademarks of Idealliance. All other trademarks are property of their rightful owners.

Friday, April 1, 2016

April 1, 2016: Seattle - DiffiColor announced

April 1, 2016: Seattle - DiffiColor announced - a new software product that is geared toward the color consultant industry.

CHROMiX, Inc. announces a new product intended to improve support and consulting opportunities worldwide.  

"Color consultants are traditionally in a hard place in the industry," said Steve Upton, president of CHROMiX.  "They come into a printing company, and once they fix the color problems, they are basically out of work."

To fill this need, CHROMiX has introduced DiffiColor.

This is a revolutionary new profiling product has a complicated user interface making it almost impossible for the uninitiated to navigate the process. "Our team has spent countless hours adding confusing language to the help menus, misleading labeling, options that do nothing, and dangerous checkboxes left on by default."

"Color management has been steadily improving over the years" mentioned Upton, "and it seemed time to shake up the market."

DiffiColor introduces new terminologies such as chromack, telnor, spront and delta-P into the color lexicon. What they actually mean is anyone's guess.

Difficolor's system requirements are enough to make even the biggest propeller-head squirm. "We knew that requiring a Newton MessagePad 120 might tax some users" continued Upton "but that puppy rocked! And if you can find one on eBay, the pricing is actually pretty good"

Adding DiffiColor to any client's workflow is guaranteed to increase consulting and training revenue.


"Think you understand your color?  THINK AGAIN!"