CHROMiX & HutchColor announce Curve4 full release, completing expansion of essential G7 tool.
Curve4 full release brings G7 Master verification, industry-standard G7 Calibration, plus the powerful new Blend toolset together in one place.
Integrated Measurement - responding to the number one user request, Curve4 now drives the best instruments including X-Rite's i1Pro, iO, iSis, Barbieri's Spectro LFP, Konica Minolta's new FD-9 and Techkon's SpectroDens (Mac-only initially). X-Rite eXact support will follow soon.
Verify Tool (released Sep. 2016) has a unique visual interface aimed at print buyers and print professionals alike. It quickly summarizes a printing system's compliance to the newest G7 Master Pass/Fail Requirements, including Grayscale, Targeted and ColorSpace and SCCA. It also provides Pass/Fail testing of production proofs using standard ISO 12647-7 control strips and exports measured data for G7 Master submission. All current ISO 15339 CRPCs are included along with Idealliance's new XCMYK characterization data, and Curve4 also loads custom color aims.
"Verify Tool is a great leave-behind when G7 implementers are gone." explained Steve Upton, President of CHROMiX, "It's easy for customers to perform quick verifications with references set up beforehand by their G7 Expert."
Calibrate Tool (released today) is the upgrade of the industry's de facto G7 calibration tool, Curve3. New Ink Restriction and predictive color analysis provide pre-calibration that's superior to most RIPs' onboard functions - especially for dye sub and other challenging large format inkjet work.
"The new Ink Restrictions mode is a huge asset.", says Scott Martin of Onsight, an active beta tester, "Not only can it be used to determine the optimal ink restrictions for maximum saturation, but it can also be used to determine a neutral 100% CMY patch"
Experienced G7 implementers will love Curve4's streamlined features including "miniP2P" targets, which are much smaller for fast scanning and fit on smaller printing systems. P2Pless calibration operates with non-P2P targets like the IT8.7/4, and tiny ΔreCal targets can fine-tune an existing calibration with only a handful of patches that easily fit on a live job.
"Two of the biggest requests from Curve3 users was faster operation and the ability to recalibrate a press without printing a whole P2P target" said HutchColor's Don Hutcheson, creator of G7 and co-author of the G7 Master specification. "Curve4 fulfills that promise."
In addition to G7 calibration, Curve4 calibrates Spot Color printing by the new SCTV method from ISO 20654 and by the TVI method to ISO-standard or custom TVI curves - including ISO 2013 curves.
"For packaging, the ability to calibrate to the new SCTV standard, combined with its other innovations, puts Curve4 ahead of the industry! SCTV is going to simplify and improve the way we print spot color inks, whether for a brand color or 7-color extended gamut printing." said Steve Smiley of SmileyColor & Associates - recently inducted into the FTA Flexo Hall of Fame. "With built-in measuring, fast G7 Master verification, support for CxF and SCTV and all the other new features, I am just overjoyed with Curve4."
Both the Verify and Calibrate tools have greatly-improved full page reports for printing or PDF export.
Blend Tool (released today) is a new multi-function toolset for modifying and enhancing measured data. It's a great place for measuring multiple press targets and then averaging and smoothing them together, tuning their white and black points and exporting to a variety of file formats. Black point adaptation improves measurements for profiles of uncoated or matte stock, correcting proof-to-press mismatches that have existed for years. Targets can also be merged to create different patch sets or have smaller subsets extracted. It even recreates missing patches, for example creating a P2P target from an IT8.
All tools import CMYK ICC profiles as source data and will directly download multiple production measurements from Maxwell, CHROMiX's online color monitoring service. Blended measurements can be exported or uploaded directly to Maxwell for use as custom color aims.
Curve4 manages all files with an easy work list to the left of each tool. Moving between files is fast and they can be organized into client or project folders. CxF and CGATS format measurement files are supported for importing or exporting color data.
Curve4 is available in three license levels: Verify, Calibrate and Complete.
Curve4 Verify is priced at $399, Calibrate is $1,599 and Complete is $2,999 with upgrades available to each level. A Demo mode is available in the free download.
Calibrate Tool with Ink Restriction and miniP2P is enabled by the Calibrate license. VPR, P2Pless, and ΔreCal require the Complete license. Blend tool requires the Complete-level license
Webinar:
Don Hutcheson of HutchColor and Steve Upton of CHROMiX will provide a full overview and demonstrate the new functionalities of Curve4 on May 31st, 2017 at 1:00 pm Pacific US. Attendees can register for the webinar simply by emailing <C4webinar(at)
chromix.com>
Availability:
All Curve4 tools are available immediately. Upgrades are available for previous Curve owners.
Please go to
http://www.chromix.com/curve4 for more information.
Curve4 in Scandinavia! 
Gumshoe, private detective, crime solving...
The March/April edition of the SGIA Journal has published an excellent article by Steve Upton:
CHROMiX celebrated 20 years as a company by hosting a taste of birthday cake for everyone at the color management conference
in San Diego earlier this month. For those who have never been to this
conference, consider going next year - as it's a smaller, more intimate
setting where you can learn more about how to improve the color in the
print room, the camera, or the display on your desktop. 
There is a new update to ColorThink Pro available on our download page:
We have our ColorForums.com server off-line for the time being. All the content is still there, but we have put it on temporary hiatus due to continual attacks and spamming.
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