The following document will outline the steps required to configure the Corel COLOR MANAGER 7. For clarification on any terms used in this document, refer to the CorelDRAW 7 manual #2 section G. The Corel COLOR MANAGER is an application that works with the CorelDRAW 7 program to ensure that color is consistent across the different devices on the computer. Once Corel COLOR MANAGER understands how a device is and how it should behave, a mathematical table can be calculated to compensate for the individual color characteristics. The goal is to have all devices producing, displaying and printing the same colors. Because monitors use the RGB (red, green, blue) color model and printers use a CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) color model to produce an image, a color conversion must take place. This is not an exact science, and minor color shifting can still be experienced with a calibrated system. To view how Corel COLOR MANAGER modifies screen images to approximate the output of the printer in Corel PHOTO-PAINT 7 or CorelDRAW 7, click View, Color Correction, and click Accurate, Simulate Printer. Accessing Corel COLOR MANAGER The Corel COLOR MANAGER can be accessed from within CorelDRAW 7 and Corel PHOTO- PAINT 7 by clicking Tools, Color Manager. It can also be accessed by clicking Start, Programs, CorelDRAW7, Graphics Utilities. If the Corel COLOR MANAGER is not listed on the start menu, it may not be installed. To install the Corel COLOR MANAGER run the Setup routine and choose Custom as the installation type. Enable the Corel COLOR MANAGER check box under Graphic Utilities, and proceed with installation. Creating a Color Profile The initial screen has list boxes from which a monitor, scanner, composite printer and separations device printer can be selected. Corel COLOR MANAGER supports a number of third party calibration devices such as densitometers and colorimeters which offer an even greater level of precision when calibrating the computer. By clicking Auto Color Profile Selection, the Corel COLOR MANAGER will attempt to automatically obtain the settings for your devices from the Control Panel. If you have not specified the devices, a Generic Profile will be used. Configuring your Monitor It is recommended that the monitor be left on for at least one hour before attempting to calibrate it. This ensures the electron guns are at a stable temperature, and stabilize color output which varies depending on how warm the guns are. If the monitor has manual adjustment controls, ensure they have been set to the recommended settings. Adjust the monitor's brightness to match the lighting in the room (ambient lighting). Remember that the brighter the ambient lighting, the smaller the range of colors the monitor can produce (gamut). Calibrating a monitor for transmissive originals like transparencies and slides requires a target in the medium for which you are calibrating. If your monitor is in the list box, click it once. This will provide the Corel COLOR MANAGER with a supplied color profile that was built specifically for the monitor you selected. If there are only four (4) options in the list box to choose from, you can expand the selection by installing additional profiles with the setup program. Other options available to you for generating a color profile are: Generic Profile This will provide a non-specific device color profile. Generate or Edit a Profile ... This will allow you to configure the device yourself. It will prompt you to enter the Manufacturer and Model of your monitor. To prevent editing an existing supplied color profile, change the name of the model and ensure that the Copy Another Monitors Characteristics check box is disabled. Click Next. Within this window, there are three methods of calibrating your monitor. Calibrate With Device, adjust the Chromaticity or monitor white point (these directly effect one another) and calibrate the monitor manually or visually. Manual or Visual Calibrating Chromaticity or monitor white point and Gamma allow you to manually calibrate the monitor. Adjust the White Point of the monitor to the Standard Illuminant of 5000 degrees Kelvin (important to be precise), and adjust the Gamma for Red, Blue, and Green. The best way to do this, is to click Red, and stand far enough away from the monitor that you cannot see the horizontal stripes in the comparison patch on the left. Adjust the Red value until you have matched the color of the two patches. Repeat these steps for Green and Blue. This will adjust the Chromaticity values. Calibrate With Device check box allows you to select the third party device and COM port you are using to generate the color profile. By clicking Calibrate, a target area will appear on the screen showing where to attach the colorimeter to the screen with its suction cups. From there its automatic, it will produce a color profile for your monitor. Get Profile From Disk ... The manufacturer of your device should be able to supply a color profile on a floppy diskette. Device profiles are stored in the International Color Consortium (ICC) standard as .ICM files. Install Profiles ... This will allow you to use one of the supplied color profiles. Ensure you have CD-ROM #1 in the drive, and click Install Profiles ... from the list box. It will take a few minutes to bring up the next window. In the Install From Disk dialog box, click the Manufacturer of the monitor. This will change the contents of the Models list box. Click the model you have, and click OK. If your monitor is not on the list, there are still a number of ways to configure a color profile. Generate or Edit a Profile ... and Get Profile From Disk ... will allow you to generate a color profile. Refer to the above section for details about using either of these methods to generate a color profile. Note: Chromaticity, Monitor White Point, and Gamma values should be supplied in the manufacturers documentation. By adjusting the values and clicking on the preview button, the image in the upper left corner will reflect the changes you have made. If you then adjust the white point (5000 Kelvin is the "standard illuminant") it will then change the Chromaticity values but this won't be apparent unless you have to recalibrate. Configuring your Scanner Enable the Scanner check box and choose your scanner from the list box. This will provide the Color Manager with a supplied color profile that was built specifically for the scanner you selected. If there are only four (4) options in the list to choose from, you can expand the selection by installing additional profiles with the setup program. Other options available to you for generating a scanner color profile are: Generic Profile This will provide a non-specific device color profile. Generate or Redo a Profile ... This will prompt you to enter the Manufacturer and Model of your device. Clicking on Next will bring up a dialog box that prompts for the method you are going to use. If you have performed this step already and saved the scanned image you can select Retrieve Target from File to get the saved file. If you haven't performed this step, click Scan Target. A target image is supplied with CorelDRAW7, but advanced or professional users should consider using a third-party (Kodak &AGFA) IT8 target (Ensure the reference file is included with the target). This type of color correction tool is recommended if you preview the calibrated VS uncalibrated image, and find that the calibrated image is tinted blue or pink. Once the preview images are generated, you can adjust the tonal characteristics of the final calibration by clicking on Use Preset Tonal Settings and manipulating the tonal response of the color manager. Select the Darken Shadows check box if your scanned colors are correct, but appear to be too light in the grayscale bar at the bottom of the target image. The target image and corresponding reference file that ship with each box of CorelDRAW7 are mass produced. For that reason, it is not possible to provide a customized target/REF file combination within the tolerances required by some systems -even though we'd love to. The solution is to make such a product available to you, and that's why we offer the Kodak target/REF file set to correct calibration problems. Once the target is scanned it will ask you if this is the target supplied by Corel or if it's a third party IT8 target. This will tell the Color Manager to compare the scanned image with our reference file (if its our target) or prompt you to specify the path to the third part target reference file. The preview window lines up the scanned file with the reference file so that it can compare the values generated by the scanned image and the corresponding values in the reference file accurately. By clicking the magnification tool, and zooming in at each corner you can line up the image correctly. Three out of the four corners must be aligned. Get Profile from Disk ... The manufacturer of your device should be able to supply a color profile on a floppy diskette. Device profiles are stored in the International Color Consortium (ICC) standard as .ICM files. Install Profiles ... This will allow you to use one of the supplied color profiles. Ensure you have CD-ROM #1 in the drive, and click Install Profiles ... from the list box. It will take a few minutes to bring up the next window. In the Install From Disk dialog box, click the Manufacturer of the monitor. This will change the contents of the Models list box. Click the model you have, and click OK. If the model is not in the list, there are a number of ways to generate a color profile for your scanner. Generate or Redo a Profile ... and Get Profile from Disk ... will allow you to generate a color profile. Refer to the above section for details about using either of these methods to generate a color profile. Configuring your Composite Printer A composite printer prints the image as it appears on your monitor. It contains a combination of all the color channels in your image. Enable the Composite check box, and choose your printer from the list box. This will provide the Color Manager with a supplied color profile that was built specifically for the printer you selected. If there are only four (4) options in the list to choose from, this is a result of the type of installation you performed. You can still generate a color profile by selecting ... Generic Profile This will provide a non-specific device color profile. Generate or Tune a profile ... This will require you to select or input the manufacturer and model of your printer. To get to a new line in the description field, hold CTRL, and press ENTER. The next window will ask you to specify if you printer is a three-four or four ink printer. If you are unsure check the printer documentation or contact the manufacturer. Choose from two options, File Method or Scanner Method. File Method is selected if you are going to use a third party device (Colorimeter) to generate a color profile. The printer must print a test pattern page. The accuracy of your final calibration is directly correlated to the number of patches (60-200) in the test pattern page. If the page has already been printed from the printer and you don't want to waste ink by printing another, click No, Do not Print Test Pattern File. It is worthy to note that the type of paper and ink used will effect the results. It is recommended that you use the printer manufacturer's ink cartridge. Color rendition on higher quality paper will provide a more accurate color representation. Some companies actually make paper specific for their printers (IE Canon). The next dialog box has two options, Load from File and Measure and Save To a File. Load from File is used if you have performed this step already and want to open the RGB Measurement file (*.RMF) that you previously saved. Otherwise, click Measure And Save To a File. From the list box, click the type of calibration device you are using along with the COM port its connected to. Regardless of the device you select, it should be calibrated by clicking on the Calibrate button. This process will be different for each device. The last dialog box, contains a test pattern. Click the color on screen, and with the third party device, calibrate the color that corresponds to a color on the printed test pattern page. Scanner Method can be used if you have successfully calibrated your scanner. The printer must print a test pattern page. The accuracy of your final calibration is correlated directly to the number of patches (60-200) in the test pattern page. If a test pattern page has already been printed from the printer and you don't want to waste ink by printing another, select No, Do not Print Test Pattern File. The next window again has two options, Retrieve Target From File and Scan Target. Retrieve Target From File can be select if the target (test pattern) has previously been scanned and saved. Once the target has been opened, the "Fiduciary Marks" will have to be aligned. By selecting the magnification tool at the bottom left and zooming in, it will enlarge a pop-up box and the cursor will change to a similarly shaped corner to allow you to line the image correctly. Three out of the four corners must be aligned. By clicking on OK, the Color Manager then generates a color profile for your printer. If the target (test pattern) has not been previously scanned and saved, click Scan Target. This will prompt you to select the image source and scan the target. Once the target has been scanned, repeat the steps outlined in Retrieve Target From File. By clicking OK, the Color Manager then generates a color profile for your printer. Get Profile From Disk ... By contacting the manufacturer of your device and asking for a color profile, they should be able to supply a color profile on a floppy diskette. Device profiles are stored in the International Color Consortium (ICC) standard as .ICM files. Install Profiles ... This will allow you to use one of the supplied color profiles. Ensure you have CD-ROM #1 in the drive, and click Install Profiles ... from the list box. It will take a few minutes to bring up the next window. In the Install From Disk dialog box, click the Manufacturer of the monitor. This will change the contents of the Models list box. Click the model you have, and click OK. If your composite printer is not in the list there are still a number of ways to configure your device. Generate or Tune a Profile ... and Get Profile From Disk ...will allow you to generate a color profile. Refer to the above section for details about using either of these methods to generate a color profile. Configuring your Separations Printer Separations break down the image into component colors (plates), that corresponds to the ink colors in your printer. The steps to generate a color profile are virtually identical to the Configuring your Composite Printer section above Remember, a color profile is driver specific. This means that, if you update a driver, you must redo or tune the profile.