ColorAnt - Quick Start Guide ColorAnt is a software which, among other things, enables you to smooth and correct measurement value files (spectrophotometrically) and to average them intelligently. This guide briefly explains ColorAnt s basic functions and shows you how to work with ColorAnt via Use Cases. This means that this guide is helpful reading for both the user who wants to test the demo version and for the purchaser. The description and images mainly refer to Mac OS X, but can be transferred to the Windows version in most cases. Contents Product contents and installation Activation and registration ColorAnt structure and working method Use Case 1: Creating a PDF report for a measurement file Use Case 2: Automatically preparing and smoothing a measurement file Use Case 3: Viewing and analyzing measurement data Use Case 4: Comparing a measurement file before and after optimization Use Case 5: Intelligent averaging of measurement data Use Case 6: Scaling test charts up and down Use Case 7: Synthetic verification of profiles PRODUCT CONTENTS AND INSTALLATION ColorAnt is available as a standalone application or in combination with the CoPrA 2 CMYK printer profiling package. It is very easy to install ColorAnt: Mac Double-clicking on the DMG package will prompt a directory to open (see figure). Now simply drag the ColorAnt icon onto the program alias and the application will already be copied into your Mac s program folder. You can start ColorAnt from there. Windows Double-click on the ColorAnt installation file and a familiar routine will start. At its completion ColorAnt will be saved in a subfolder of your computer s program folder and you can already launch the application via the Start menu.! PAGE 1
ACTIVATION AND REGISTRATION ColorAnt is automatically activated if you have bought ColorAnt in combination with the CoPrA 2 CMYK printer profiling package. To activate it you must first load your license file into CoPrA 2 and then launch ColorAnt. If you wish to test ColorAnt before purchasing, you do not need any license key. You can test all of the software functions even without a license key, but cannot save any optimized measurement files. If you have bought ColorAnt as a standalone application and obtained a license file from your dealer, you activate ColorAnt using the license file. 1. In the ColorAnt menu bar go to Help/Register. 2. In the Register dialog then click on Load License. You will automatically be directed to a selection window where you can select your personal license key. 3. The relevant functions are available to you as soon as you have registered. You close the Register dialog by clicking Close. COLOR ANT STRUCTURE AND WORKING METHOD The individual Tools are located in the upper area of the program window. You can apply these tools to any measurement data loaded in the Data Sets area. You use the large Automatic button at the left edge of the window for automatic measurement data correction and smoothing among other things. The upper tools rows are for use on individual measurement value files. The two tools below the separation line (Averaging and Concatenation) are designed for use on multiple measurement data units. Tools that cannot be used are grayed out. A specific sequence in the working method is recommended when preparing measurement data: You should first clean up redundant color patches (Redundancies), then correct faulty measurement values (Correction) and finally smooth the measurement data (Smoothing). This working method is shown in the top tools row from left to right. The Rescale tool in the top row is an optional tool for re-sorting, making random test charts readable or also for rescaling to completely different test chart layouts.! PAGE 2
The tools in the second row from Brightener to Black Correction fulfill particular tasks. ICC Transformation is designed to apply printer and/or DeviceLink profiles to reference data in order to conduct profile tests and comparisons. The Data Sets area shows the loaded data sets. You can either drag measurement data onto this area of the window by using drag & drop or import it using the Load button. In addition to the filename, the number of color patches, the device color model (e.g. CMYK, RGB or Multicolor) and the type of measurement values (colorimetric = Lab, spectral = Remission) are also displayed. If several measurement data sets are loaded, you can select one or more measurement files. The desired tool is then applied to the selected measurement files. If several measurement files have been loaded, but no file has been selected, the tool you selected will be applied to all measurement files. The name of the tool is appended to the filename after use for better labeling. All of the steps that have been taken from loading files via selecting tools to saving files are saved and displayed in the History area. You can return to a previous step at any time, by selecting the corresponding entry in History. All windows to display measurement data, which is active under View, are updated according to the active history step. You save optimized measurement data by clicking the Save button. Any measurement files that are no longer required are removed by clicking the Delete button. A comprehensive PDF report on the selected measurement file is produced by using the Report button. The PDF report provides a lot of useful information and tips, including which tools are best for you to use on the file. You delete all of the loaded files plus the entire current history. By clicking the Clear button below History you can delete all uploaded files as well as the entire current history. By enabling the two checkboxes at the lower edge of the window you can open additional windows to display a detailed view of the measurement file (View) and/or to compare several measurement files or to show a prepost comparison (Color Comparison) of a measurement file.! PAGE 3
Use Case 1: Creating a PDF report for a measurement file If you do not know whether your measurement data is suitable for further processing (e.g. for the creation of profiles) or needs to be corrected, you can produce a report. This report is used to verify and graphically display the data and to provide recommendations for corrections. 1. Before you use one of the tools, select the loaded measurement file and click on the Report button. 2. In the report dialog that opens enter the desired filename in Report file and specify the location by clicking the Select button. 3. In addition to the important Check Quality function, where necessary, also activate the checkboxes Check print standard to select a comparison profile and/or Find best printing standard to automatically select the ICC profile that matches the measurement data best for a comparison, from the list of your ICC profiles. 4. If you then click on Start, the PDF report with the assigned name will be created at the specified location and opened in your PDF viewer. 5. The different report pages provide an insight into the tonal value increase curves (TVI), the gamut representation (Spider Web) as well as the results of the test on the matching of redundant color patches (Quality section), measurement or printing errors and the smoothness of the measurement file. 6. By switching on/off the different layers in the PDF file, you can display the individual tone curves. Furthermore, you can switch on/off the color patches highlighted with a red frame and also view color patches before and after correction and smoothing. In addition, text assessments in the individual sections give tips on the correction tools to be used in ColorAnt. You also get tips about optical brighteners in the paper, which of your available ICC profiles best fits the measurement data or how exactly the measurement data depicts a pre-defined reference profile.! PAGE 4
Use Case 2: Automatically correcting and smoothing measurement files A specific sequence in the working method is recommended when preparing measurement data. First clean up redundant color patches in the measurement file, then correct faulty measurement values and finally smooth the measurement data. This sequence is automatically executed by using the Automatic function. 1. Load your measurement file by dragging it onto the Data Sets area or by selecting it with the Load button. 2. Click on the Automatic button and on the Start button in the dialog which then appears. 3. You can follow each step in History and view it individually there (if you have View open) or undo it. 4. Save the optimized measurement file as a new file by clicking the Save button. You can then use the optimized measurement file e.g. in profiling software like CoPrA to create high-quality ICC printer profiles. Note: Measurement data is saved in some ICC printer profiles (e.g. CoPrA always saves the measurement data in the calculated ICC profile). You can extract this from the corresponding ICC printer profile very easily, by dragging the ICC profile onto the Data Set area in ColorAnt.! PAGE 5
Use Case 3: Viewing and analyzing measurement data If you wish to view a measurement file more closely, select this in the Data Sets area and open the View window. Four different views allow you to get a quick overview of all color patches in the measurement file: the 2D view shows the reference and the corresponding Lab values for each patch, a rotating 3D view of the colors, the TVI curves and a 2-dimensional color view (Spider Web). You may open an additional window displaying the remission curve when double clicking a color patch in the 2D view (given that spectral data are loaded) - helpful to analyze if papers use optical brightener. Note: You can turn the color patches into the desired direction in 3D-View by clicking and dragging. You increase or decrease the view by using the right hand side Zoom slider and enlarge or minimize the color patches by using the Point Size slider. If you apply a correction step in the History, the selected View immediately shows the data linked to this correction step and the effect of the correction.! PAGE 6
Use Case 4: Comparing a measurement file before and after optimization You can compare a measurement file before and after optimization with the help of the Color Comparison window. 1. First apply the desired tool to your measurement file (e.g. the Automatic tool). 2. Then select the measurement file in the Data Set area. 3. Enable the Color Comparison checkbox to open the comparison window. 4. At the top in the upper left chooser select the original measurement file before processing and select the file after processing on the right. 5. In the Colors tab under the Compare Mode chooser select the color distance formula (DeltaE or DeltaE-2000). 6. Highlight the color patches that should lie within a specific DeltaE area with the help of the Mark From and Mark To regulator. If, for example, you wish to display all color patches which have a color distance of more than 3 DeltaE, configure the regulator using the setting displayed in the image. 7. If you activate a color patch with the mouse, the two colors, before and after the optimization, will be divided in a big container, and the associated lab values and color distance (Delta) displayed. If you click in an empty area outside the color patches, the maximum color distance (Maximum) as well as the average (Average) over all of the color patches will be displayed, as shown in the figure.! PAGE 7
Use Case 5: Intelligent averaging of measurement data If you have several measurement files from the same test chart layout available and you wish to average these, ColorAnt offers different averaging methods. In most cases, it is not best to select the arithmetic mean, especially if there are irregular values in the measurement data that could prevent the formation of a suitable average result. 1. Load the measurement values that you want to average and select these in the Data Set list. Make sure that the number of color patches in all of the selected measurement files is identical, as otherwise you cannot use the averaging function directly. 2. Click on the Averaging button. 3. You have various averaging methods available in the Averaging configuration dialog. Specific methods are recommended depending on the number of measurement files. In most cases you are making the right choice by selecting the Auto method, which is selected by default. Note: Different methods are used via the Auto Method depending on the color patches to be averaged. For example, if only two color patches have to be averaged, Arithmetic is used. If more than three color patches exist, the Auto method uses Weighted or Median. 4. By clicking on Start the selected measurement files will be merged to form an averaged file (Averaged.txt). 5. You save the averaged file with Save as a new file. Note: If you wish to average differently sized test charts with a different number of color patches, you can merge these initially into a large measurement value file with the Concatenation tool. You then average the redundant color patches with the Redundancies tool. You delete redundant color patches by activating the Remove duplicate Patches checkbox next to the averaging method. The methods for averaging redundant color patches are the same as in the Averaging tool.! PAGE 8
Use Case 6: Scaling test charts up and down ColorAnt offers the possibility of calculating large test charts that can be used for profiling from small test chart measurement files. In some printing processes, (e.g. flexo printing on uneven materials) it is extremely difficult to achieve an artifact-free printing of a large ECI2002 test chart. The procedure of placing several small test charts, e.g. ColorLogic Reprofiler strips (see figures) on one page, measuring these, averaging them in ColorAnt (see Use Case 5) and then scaling up to a large ECI2002 test chart with the Rescale tool is more effective here. 1. Select the measurement file that you want to scale up and click on the Rescale button. 2. Select the desired test chart layout to which the measurement file should be scaled up. 3. If you already have an ICC printer profile (reference profile), which approximately describes your standard to be printed, you can select the printer profile by checking the option Use characteristics of a reference profile. If you do not have a profile like this, do not activate the checkmark. 4. Click on Start and ColorAnt will calculate and interpolate the missing color patches from your small chart and create the desired chart layout. 5. Save the scaled up measurement value file as a new file by clicking on the Save button. Note: Missing color patches are automatically supplemented when scaling to other charts. Missing color patches (e.g. from overprinting colors that are missing in small charts) can be assessed better with the help of a reference profile. In reverse, you can also use the Rescale tool to extract the color patches required for the Fogra/Ugra-Media Wedge V3 from a measured large ECI2002 or IT8.7-4 test chart. ColorAnt uses the color patches from the available measurement file 1:1 in the new chart layout. This enables you to produce your own media wedge reference files for verifying printed proofs very easily.! PAGE 9
Use Case 7: Synthetic verification of profiles The ICC Transformation tool enables you to use both ICC device and DeviceLink profiles on reference data to synthetically test the impact of an ICC color conversion with up to three profiles. In this use case we wish to test how exactly a SaveInk-DeviceLink profile works. 1. Open the same large test chart layout (e.g. IT8.7-4) twice via File/Open Predefined. The CMYK reference values of this test chart are opened. 2. Select one of the two opened reference files. Apply the original printer profile with which you created your Savelnk profile or which have available on the reference file in the ICC Transformation window. Convert the reference file to Lab with the absolute colorimetric rendering intent by clicking on Start. 4. The objective of a SaveInk conversion is to keep the color impression of the original printer profile as exact as possible, despite modified (reduced) CMYK values, i.e. to achieve the lowest possible color deviations. You can compare both files in the Color Comparison window. In the Graph tab you see that the average deviation (Average) is 0.1 Delta E and the maximum deviation (Maximum) is 1.2 DeltaE in this example. 90% of the deviations (90% percentile) do not diverge by more than 0.2 DeltaE. This is an example of a SaveInk-DeviceLink profile that works very exactly, and which you can create with the SaveInk module in CoPrA 2. 3. Now select the other reference file. First apply the SaveInk-DeviceLink profile and secondly the original printer profile with the absolute colorimetric rendering intent. In addition to converting the reference file to Lab, the CMYK values are also changed with the SaveInk profile. Copyright ColorLogic GmbH, 2011! PAGE 10