Advantages of DocBees-ProfileTagger at a glance:
· The tool enables you to check whether the image data in a PDF/X file match the output intent, or need to be "made to fit" by means of color conversion.
· It helps you prevent your data from being incorrectly converted in a downstream color workflow because of an undetected, incorrectly assigned profile (e.g. a SWOP profile instead of ISO Coated V2).
DocBees ProfileTagger works both by Drag&Drop and on the basis of preconfigured hot folders, and is integrated in Enfocus Switch by means of a Configurator. This link to Enfocus Switch offers a wide variety of automation options, even in complex workflows.
Close the gap inside your colormanagement workflow: Analyze and correct the colormanagement of delivered PDF and Pixel data
When it comes to handling color data, we can nowadays professionally render and convert almost anything by means of ICC profiles and DeviceLink profiles. All we need is a profile that describes the origin of an image or file, and the profile that tells us where we're heading for. Sounds easy, doesn't it? This approach merely presupposes that we know the source profile and have it at our disposal. Unfortunately, reality paints a very different picture. Without the matching CMYK source profile, good advice can be very hard to come by – and expensive to boot. After all, the source profile is the decisive factor. It describes the "true" color identity of a file, e.g. whether a sunshade is blue or turquoise, or whether the lawn looks lush green or dry green. If this source information is missing, creative and prepress staff often have to make an "intelligent guess" before performing data conversion or the prepress work.
An example
On the top in the example below left on the sidebar, you can see the display of a PDF file with four different CMYK separations, all of which contain no embedded profiles. Without the assignment of profiles, the file would not be displayed in its true colors in a PDF reader, such as Adobe Acrobat. Following correct identification and embedding of the profiles by DocBees ProfileTagger, the file again has the correct appearance in Acrobat (bottom), since Acrobat uses the embedded profiles for display. Similarly, color servers like ColorLogic ZePrA can perform object-based, color-accurate conversion with the correctly embedded profiles.
Without the embbeded ICC profiles fitting to the images the colors dispalyed in the softproof and the final print would be wrong.
The challenge
Have you ever tried to assign a replacement profile to a file? And have you perhaps also had the fortune of possessing the "true" profile of the file for comparison? If so, you know about the great uncertainty associated with incorrectly assigned or missing profiles. Especially if the aim is to preserve the quality of the original image and deliver data optimized for standardized printing at the same time. Whatever the case, the source profile plays a decisive role as regards color. If no profile is assigned or attached to our data, the big guessing game begins – at least if no one has the faintest idea of where the data originated from, and enquiries result in nothing more than helpless shaking of heads.
The approaches
So, what can an agency, a customer, a prepress provider or a printer do today to get out of this predicament? The options are very limited: They can try to locate the producer of the data and ask him for the associated ICC profile, or test various existing "standard profiles" and visually select the one that appears to be the best. However, assigning profiles by trial and error can sometimes do more harm than good. After all, the recipient, e.g. the printer, takes the assigned information seriously and then complains about the data, or converts them, if the assigned profile does not match the ultimate printing process.
Let the software check if images in your files are tagged with the correct ICC profiles and take advantage of the recommendations for better fitting profiles for files of different origins.
The solution
DocBees ProfileTagger is a very special kind of color management preflighting tool that automatically identifies the profile that suits a CMYK separation best. Working at breakneck speed, the tool analyzes both TIFF and JPEG image data, as well as all images in PDF files, assigns them the most suitable profiles and, if required, embeds these profiles in the files.
Check if images in PDF/X files are correctly separated according to the given output intent.
For example, the tool enables you to check whether the image data in a PDF/X file match the output intent, or need to be "made to fit" by means of color conversion. It helps you prevent your data from being incorrectly converted in a downstream color workflow because of an undetected, incorrectly assigned profile (e.g. a US SWOP profile instead of ISO Coated V2 or vise versa). DocBees ProfileTagger works both by Drag&Drop and on the basis of preconfigured hot folders, and is integrated in Enfocus Switch by means of a Configurator. This link to Enfocus Switch offers a wide variety of automation options, even in complex workflows.
The special features of the tool are the high speed of separation identification, and the accuracy of profile assignment. To identify the most suitable profile, the CMYK values of the image are compared to the CMYK values of the profiles to be tested. The profile providing the best match is assigned to the image.
Interested?
Ask your ColorLogic distributor for a demo license to test, how DocBees ProfileTagger may help you to solve your daily production issues.