Page 134 - Graphic Design and Print Production Fundamentals

122 Chapter 4. Colour Management in the Graphic Technologies
mechanism. It enables you to confirm that colour elements in the file are as they should be before you
commit to the expensive step of actual output. With Output Preview, you can turn individual separations
on and off to check overprints and knockouts; check the separation list to confirm which elements are
attached to each separation; identify the colour space of each object; and even highlight any area that
exceeds your threshold for total ink coverage.

Profile Use in Kodak Prinergy

The final topic in our exploration of colour management in graphic technologies is an example of the
application of colour management in a print production workflow. We’ll use one of the predominant
workflow applications, Kodak Prinergy, as a model.

The processing instructions for file handling in Prinergy are contained in a process template. Input files
are ‘refined’ to PDF in the Prinergy workflow and an important portion of the refining process is the
instructions relating to colour conversions. In addition, we have process templates for output both to
proof and final output. These templates also contain colour control options. For both refine and output
process templates, the colour management information is contained in the Match Colors box of the Color
Convert subsection.

Prinergy offers a comprehensive colour management application of its own called ColorFlow. There is
a check box in Color Convert to turn on ColorFlow awareness and pass all of the colour management
decisions to what has been predefined in ColorFlow. Discussing the structure and functional logic of
ColorFlow is beyond the scope of this text. To use Prinergy as a more generic workflow example, we’ll
uncheck the ColorFlow option and turn off the integration.

The standard location to store profiles for use by Prinergy is \Prinergy\ CreoAraxi\data\ICC-Profiles.
Profiles are not immediately available from this location in Prinergy’s drop-down menus, but can be
browsed to if placed in job-specific subfolders.

Let’s look at the Match Colors section of the refine process template. With ColorFlow integration turned
off, the entry fields under Assign Input Device Conditions become available. If you check Override
Embedded Profiles, then profiles that are checked on in the Assign Input Device Conditions section will
replace all existing profiles in the files being processed. Notice that there is a very granular level of
control, with independent entries for CMYK images, CMYK graphics, RGB images, and RGB graphics.
If you specify a device link profile, it will override any tagged profile whether or not Override Embedded
Profiles is checked.

Convert to Destination is where you indicate the destination profile. This will only be used for instances
not covered by a device link in the assign section. Remember that any device link contains both source
and destination information. Beneath the Convert box is a box for selecting rendering intents. Entries are
only available for the options that were checked on under Assign Input Device Conditions. The default
entry is Perceptual since most input files will require image conversions from larger colour gamuts.

For output process templates in Prinergy, the options are very similar to what has been described above.
We typically use colour management for output to proofs, either single page or imposed. There is a
separate ColorFlow section to uncheck to enable the more traditional colour management approach. In
the Match Colors box, Match Colors in Page Content must be checked on for any colour profiles to