Innovative color management methods for RGB printing

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 57).The demand for printing excellent quality images has increased tremendously in parallel to the growth spurts in the digital camera market. Printing good quality images consistently, however, remains a difficult and/or expensive venture despite the numerous advances in color technology and printing. To alleviate these issues, a color compensating software solution was developed to utilize the unique Kikuze calibration chart to improve printer output. The software solution integrates with the windows printing process at the operating system level through a UNIDRV plug-in. The plug-in retrieves the data within the print stream, passes it on to the color compensation engine which corrects the color data by mapping input and output colors obtained via a B-spline interpolation algorithm. The rendered image is re-introduced into the print stream for final printing. The prototype achieved successful results and can be packaged with commercial printers after a few refinements.by Curtis N. Vanderpuije.M.Eng

ColrSpace: A Mata class for color management

ColrSpace is a class-based color management system implemented in Mata. It supports a wide variety of color spaces and translations among them, provides color generators and a large collection of named palettes, and features functionality such as color interpolation, grayscale conversion, or color vision deficiency simulation. ColrSpace requires Stata 14.2 or newer

Print engine color management using customer image content

The production of quality color prints requires that color accuracy and reproducibility be maintained to within very tight tolerances when transferred to different media. Variations in the printing process commonly produce color shifts that result in poor color reproduction. The primary function of a color management system is maintaining color quality and consistency. Currently these systems are tuned in the factory by printing a large set of test color patches, measuring them, and making necessary adjustments. This time-consuming procedure should be repeated as needed once the printer leaves the factory. In this work, a color management system that compensates for print color shifts in real-time using feedback from an in-line full-width sensor is proposed. Instead of printing test patches, this novel attempt at color management utilizes the output pixels already rendered in production pages, for a continuous printer characterization. The printed pages are scanned in-line and the results are utilized to update the process by which colorimetric image content is translated into engine specific color separations (e.g. CIELAB-\u3eCMYK). The proposed system provides a means to perform automatic printer characterization, by simply printing a set of images that cover the gamut of the printer. Moreover, all of the color conversion features currently utilized in production systems (such as Gray Component Replacement, Gamut Mapping, and Color Smoothing) can be achieved with the proposed system

Test Targets 6.0: A Collaborative effort exploring the use of scientific methods for color imaging and process control

Test Targets is a collection of scholarly papers contributed by faculty, students, and alumni of Rochester Institute of Technology. We realize the importance of having faculty set examples as authors for students to follow. We have a three-course sequence over a time span of a year to prepare students to publish their first articles when completing Tone and Color Analysis, Printing Process Control, and Advanced Color Management. In this instance, Test Targets 6.0 is a part of the course content in the Advanced Color Management course

Test Targets 4.0: A Collaborative effort exploring the use of scientific methods for color imaging and process control

Test Target 4.0 (TT4.0) is the result of student teamwork to publish a technical journal for a graduate-level course titled: Advance Color Management (Course no. 2081-735-03). Offered by the School of Print Media (SPM) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the course is a platform to experiment and to realize a new digital imaging paradigm and the dynamics of teamwork.... Team members learn scientific methodology in process control for repeatable color as well as apply ICC-based color management practices in digital workflows. They plan and conduct press run analyses reported in TT4.0, which is printed using facilities available at RIT. In producing this publication, the team learns to integrate design, content creation, digital media, and print production in a seamless workflow.... -p. 4

The shifting perception.

True to life, color display and color management depend on a proper technical model of the display used. Current gamma models and fitting procedures are not accurate in modeling the lower part of the tone reproduction curve. The GOG- and GOGO-model used in color management standards tend to clip the luminance to zero for digital values were luminance can be seen and measured. Two improvements to the models are suggested. First, the models should be fitted by optimizing the root mean square error (RMSE) of the CIE lightness instead of the luminance. Second, a shifting gamma model is adopted, with gamma increasing in value for lower voltages. Results show that the adapted models correspond better with the luminance measurements. The clipping values are nearer to the measured zero luminance threshold, and the average RMSE and ΔEab over the whole scale are smalle

Test Targets 3.0: A Collaborative effort exploring the use of scientific methods for color imaging and process control

Test Targets 3.0 focuses on the integration and analysis of a number of input devices, color image renderings with the use of a robust CTP system and a full-fledged web offset press … The first section is a collection of test forms … The second section is a compilation of color management practices by the class. – p. v