Curve4: Now with Maxwell!

Guess what new feature is being added to Curve4?

Long-term color tracking and trending for your entire print organization!

Guess how much that will cost?  

No additional charge for any Curve4 customer!

Bonus question:  How hard will it be to implement?

Two easy setup items in Maxwell and two easy setup items in the new Curve4.

Steve Upton explains the details in this new video.

Color Management all the more important when having supply issues

It's no secret that many in the print industry are having problems getting and maintaining stocks of substrate material. Recent surveys show that the industry expects the situation to get worse in coming months. If this hasn't happened to you yet, it probably will! When you have different substrates being pulled from irregular sources, this is a good recipe for color inconsistency and other headaches. This is fair warning to bone up on your profile building. Modern profiling systems do an excellent job of creating profiles that make the most of your print / media /ink gamut. You might be able to profile an inferior grade of paper to look similarly to your regular paper.

What even more important, a good modern profile will accurately portray your color workflow. When it comes time to make one printer look like another printer, that's when you need particularly accurate profiles to pull this off.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention as well that a system of tracking color consistency over time is a life-safer in these unsettled times. We have had Maxwell customers who have successfully kept their supplier's feet to the fire as it were, as Maxwell provided proof that the purchased paper showed a change in quality. Contact us for information about an easy and inexpensive way to start tracking your color, and get started now - before things get busy and before trouble comes.

CHROMiX is the WINNER of the 2022

Barbieri Excellence Award for Business Performance

CHROMiX has been selected by Barbieri for it's Excellence Award! 

"CHROMiX develops software for the digital printing market and spectral color data is a cornerstone for its software evaluations. We found there there is a deep understanding in how to connect and integrate spectral data and color measurement technology which allows customers to gather the highest accuracy."

The feeling is mutual. We love Barbieri devices and work hard to incorporate effective and seamless compatibility with our software.

Here is a link to Barbieri's Hall of Excellence for more depth in details of this award.

Say goodbye to an old friend

i1Pro - Rev A

You knew this day was coming color management geeks.  With the release of its latest version of i1Profler, X-Rite has revealed that its flagship software will no longer support the earliest models of the i1Pro spectrophotometer. 

The i1Pro first came to market in 2001 which is a million years ago in digital imaging years. It has been a stalwart component of the color management toolbox for years.  Even after X-Rite came out with the i1Pro 2 and now the i1Pro 3 & the i1Pro 3 Plus,  there were quite a few of these original units floating around in the industry.   If you still have one of these older i1Pros (Rev A, B, C or D), then know that they will no longer operate on the newest version of i1Profiler: version 3.2 or newer.  

G7: How a big company does it

Our friend Jeff Collins,
and another friend, Mike Todryk, of IWCO Direct have a great discussion on how Mike was able to take a company with an enormous variety of printing devices & technologies, and transform it so that they know where their color is, they have their color under control, and they maintain a "shared neutral appearance" - through the wonder of G7.  Mike shares details about the software they used, and what they did to improve procedures for saving time, money and hitting industry standard color.   A special bonus near the end includes the mistakes that brand owners commonly make when communicate color to printers.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/episodes/iwco-direct-the-benchmark-of-a-process-control-culture

24. IWCO Direct: The Benchmark of a Process Control Culture Mike Todryk elegantly walks through what anyone would describe as THE absolute benchmark process control company - across (3) facilities, (13) Continuous Web Litho Presses, (10) Continuous Web Inkjet Presses, (10) Flexo Presses, (3) Digital EP Presses, (2) Sheetfed Offset Presses, (3) Contract Proofers - maintained by (4) in-house G7® Experts.

Profiling Secrets revealed!

Steve Upton, Pat Herold and Rick Hatmaker are gearing up to head to the PIA Color Conference 2019 in San Diego coming up in January 12th to 15th.  Pat will be presenting a session on how to make great profiles. Steve has a couple of sessions on verification & troubleshooting inkjet output, as well as analysis of expanded gamut printing.

CHROMiX will also be providing a 20th Year Birthday Cake during the 3:20 pm afternoon break on Monday the 14th. Come join us if you can!

Last year was a surprisingly great conference in the new location with a lot of new people.   This year promises to be even better!

Color 2019 is back with more than 35 in-depth sessions, featuring four tracks, including Brand & Design, Print Production How-to's, Wide Format Inkjet, and Standards & Research. Whether you're a creative, brand professional, production specialist, or a color management expert, there will be sessions that are well-matched for you at this year's conference. Color 2019 is where you'll find the best, most practical and in-depth information from the best minds in color—and gain knowledge that will strengthen your competitive edge.

Visit www.printing.org/color for more information!

Color Management in the Cloud

Steve Upton is interviewed by Cary Sherburne of What They Think on how Maxwell is being used to monitor color within companies and around the world.  He describes how Shutterfly is using the Maxwell solution in photobook printing.

How can you describe all that Maxwell can do in only 3 minutes!?

http://whattheythink.com/video/84193-blending-cloud-services-color-management-increased-efficiency/

Curve4 new features - the video

Steve Upton and Don Hutcheson explained the new features of Curve4 recently in a webinar.  There are so many new tools and modules in this new version of Curve that it really helps to watch the makers explain it all.  

You can watch the YouTube video of the whole presentation here:

https://youtu.be/sbnR_nYStUk

Or go directly to the highlight of your choice:

Built-in measuring ability

The calibrate tool

New targets available for Curve4

New ink limiting feature

Re-calibrate using smaller targets

The Blend Tool

Questions and Answers

A new Measurement Tool

CHROMiX has been quietly adding the ability to directly drive a number of popular spectrophotometers in the industry, originally for the Client software that works with our Maxwell database.  We will be rolling that same capability out to our new software products as well.   People have been begging us for this feature for years!   Besides the Maxwell Client, you can see this feature in Curve4 Verify - recently released.  Expect to see this even more in the future.

I have produced some videos to show how this new measurement module works.
 X-Rite i1Pro,  X-Rite iSis  X-Rite IO table   Barbieri LFP  KonicaMinolta FD-9

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

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

---

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.

Barbieri and Maxwell

Maxwell got a nice plug from Barbieri at the recent ISA show in Las Vegas.

Our Maxwell Client works closely with the Barbieri SpectroPad to load tracks onto the instrument and pull off measurements for uploading into Maxwell.

This makes for a great combination: Wireless portability, instant pass/fail reporting,  and connection with the Cloud for tracking color anywhere in the world.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/barbieri-front-center-isa-sal-passanisi

Check your instruments

The beginning of a new year is a great time to take stock of all your measurement devices.  I'm thinking that peak time around your company is winding down now, and you have a bit of time to devote to some proactive maintenance.

This is a good time to:

•  Run your spectros through any diagnostic programs that are available for your devices.  Barbieri has a software tool called "Service Report" for all of their instruments and X-Rite has a utility called "i1Diagnostics" that has been recently updated to work with the i1Pro 2 and IO 2 table.

The reason why you want to run your instruments through these tools when there is nothing wrong with them, is so you can have a record of what your instrument looks like when everything is good.  Run your instrument through the diagnostic tool, save the result and keep it for the future.  Someday you'll thank me when you have a color problem and the idea goes through your mind, "I wonder if the instrument is bad?"  You can run the process again and hopefully say, "Well the service report shows basically the same numbers it did when we ran the same test back in January."

• An even better way to have assurance of instrument accuracy is to measure a control tool on a regular basis.  This control tool would be a control strip that is specially made to be stable and colorfast for a long time.   We sell the Vogelsong COLORef and also bundle it with our MeasureWatch service of Maxwell.  This combination gives you a quality control strip as well as an easy way to track the accuracy of your device as you make routine instrument checks over time.  The idea is that if an instrument is going out of spec. you'll know about it ahead of time. 

Yosemite compatibility and CHROMiX apps

Apple's Yosemite version of Mac OS X (v10.10) has just been released.

We've completed some preliminary testing for ColorThink 3.0.3 and Curve 3.0.1 and both seem to be running well.

We'll be testing Maxwell and the Maxwell Client on Yosemite in the days ahead and will let you know if we find any issues.

So far, so good!

100 million measurements!

This past November, Maxwell reached a milestone of having received 100 million measurements!

To celebrate this, CHROMiX provided fancy cake for attendees at the 2013 PIA Color Management Conference (in Phoenix, AZ on December 8th). This is the same trade show where we originally announced Maxwell seven years ago.   It was a perfect place and time to mark this great milestone.  It was also some excellent cake.  Lots of people came by, had some cake and took a look at Maxwell.    

As of today, Maxwell is at 114 million measurements and climbing!

Simpler is better

We have been doing a lot of work on the client program that aids in the uploading of color data into Maxwell, our online color management system.   Originally called the "ColorShuttle", we have changed its name to simply be the Maxwell "Client".    As our Maxwell business develops, it just seemed unnecessary to have a client application that was named differently than the service it connected to.   Our poor ColorValet Pro customers had to be taught that the service they purchased is ColorValet Pro, the app they use is the ColorShuttle, which talks to the cloud called Maxwell.    Too many names!   Simpler is better.

Even the structure of the new Client is simpler.  You no longer need to make hotfolders for each track if you don't want to,  there's a simpler way to bond to tracks, this Client can automatically route the measurements of targets that are placed into an iSis (for those who have subscribed to this service), and you can now slide your i1Pro in either directions when measuring a chart.

80,000,000

For some reason, Maxwell does not get mentioned much in our blog. Perhaps it's because Maxwell is the behind-the-scenes color repository that powers many of the other service we provide such as ColorValet, Digital PressWatch, ProofWatch, DisplayWatch. Well, despite a lack of renown, Maxwell has quietly been accumulating more and more measurements as time passes. And the increase in measurements go up as more Maxwell users come on board. As of this month, Maxwell topped eighty million measurements -
80,000,000.