June 1, 2009
Tradeshow and Conference Attendance
Artifex hosted a booth at On Demand/AIIM last March and will host a booth at this year's PRINT 09 Trade Show in Chicago
Please look for us at the following trade shows and symposiums:
Print 09, September 11th - 16th, 2009.
New Color News from Dr. Michael Vhrel
A new color architecture is under development for Ghostscript. This design provides improved flexibility and efficiency in ICC-based color workflows. Today, almost all print color management is performed using ICC profiles as opposed to PostScript Color Management (PCM), which predates the ICC format. The new architecture will continue to support all the PCM based methods and provide the ability for color management, both PCM and ICC to be implemented by an external ICC based color management module (CMM). Interfacing a new CMM into Ghostscript is straight forward. Artifex will provide examples using littleCMS, Argyll, Windows ICM and Apple's ColorSync to name a few.
In the new architecture, Ghostscript will request linked transformations (color mappings) from the CMM. These mappings, which map from source colors to destination colors, will be cached by Ghostscript to improve efficiency. When the linked transformation is requested, the CMM will also be provided information about the document's current rendering intent and if the object to be managed is an image, a graphic or text.
Often it is desired to apply different color transformations if the object is an image, a graphic or a text. The common example is that it is desirable to use pure black as opposed to composite black when drawing black text. In addition, with an image, you likely will want to use a perceptual based mapping to create pleasing images but with a graphic you likely will want to use a more saturated mapping to obtain vibrant colors.
Additional features of the design include:
Ability to define the default input Gray, RGB and CMYK color spaces in terms of ICC profiles.
Ability for devices to communicate their ICC profile and have their ICC profile set.
Support for either ICC named color profiles for managing named colors or for the use of custom methods for mapping from named colors to device or CIELAB values.
Ability to use DeviceN ICC profiles to define the output device color space.
Support for input DeviceN ICC profiles for PDLs that support them.
Support for final ICC Devicelink profiles prior to halftoning for CMYK to CMYK proofing redirection.
Ability to specify an ICC profile for a proofing device.
A design that operates efficiently in a multithreaded environment.
While Ghostscript has supported ICC profiles for a long time, this design provides a significant update to the flexibility of Ghostscript. It will be straight forward for customers to use their own CMM with Ghostscript. This will enable them to achieve a new level of control as well as obtain consistent color across their products for all PDLs.
Ghostscript Technology Developments
Watch for the Ghostscript 8.65 release coming in the beginning of June. This release plus more will include fixes for about 40 SMask transparency bugs. More to come.
Artifex
is a leading core technology provider with the most
comprehensive software solution for the embedded
printing market. Artifex's Ghostscript offers all
the major leading Page Distribution Languages (PDLs)
including Portable Document Format (PDF), Postscript,
XPS "Metro", PCL5e/c, and PCLXL (together
= PCL6), along with high-performance screening technologies
and a combination of fonts compatible with leading
printers. No other software vendor offers a solution
this complete. Millions of users have benefited
from its ability to preview documents on the screen
or provide high quality raster for hardcopy output.
In addition, Artifex's Ghostscript combines the
tools, information and technical support needed
in order to meet the reliability and performance
requirements of its OEM customers. Artifex's Ghostscript
has been integrated with over 80 OEM customers'
products, including: activePDF, Hewlett Packard,
IBM, Kyocera, Macromedia and Xerox. Artifex's Ghostscript
software solution set operates on all major platforms
as well as most embedded system CPU's.
