"Color Conversion" Option

You enable the Color Management system of the Prinect workflow with this option. Color settings of the documents are applied if this option is not enabled.

When processing color data from their creation (scanner, digital photography, graphics applications) up to output, there are many places that are the cause that the printed result is not what you expected because of the various characteristics of the devices or applications concerned. The colors are often incorrectly printed or are located in an unsuitable color space, and a time-consuming adjustment process is required to correct the colors.

To avoid incorrectly reproduced colors, the color management tool may be of assistance. Color management runs through the whole process path of the prepress and press workflow. A color management can therefore only provide correct results when the corresponding tools are correctly applied at every level of the workflow. This requires that the devices, applications and operating systems involved in the workflow support color management and are correctly set up.

The goal of Color Management is to standardize the color reproduction of digital image data and other color objects over the entire editing process. Color space conversion was introduced to achieve a standardized color representation. Color space conversion basically matches the image or graphic data from the creator color space (e.g. color space of a digital camera) to the color space of the output device or process (e.g. color space of a color printer).

The diagram below shows the basic principle of a color space conversion:

It must be remembered that the color space of the recording device and the color space of the output process are device-dependent. In other words, these color spaces describe the color-specific properties of the recording device (digital camera, scanner, etc.) and of the print process used (press, CTP device, color proofer, monitor). To establish a standardized color management process that can handle different input devices and various output channels, a universal, device-independent profile connection space that links the input profile with the output profile is often interposed. The color spaces themselves cannot be influenced by color management because they are determined either by the physical properties of the devices concerned or, in the case of the profile connection space, defined as universal.

​•​First of all, the data are in the color space of the input device (scanner, digital camera, etc.).

​•​The data are converted to the device-independent profile connection space (CIEL*a*b* color space) when the device ICC profile is enabled. The abbreviation "CIE" stands for "Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage". L*a*b* is an abstract name for a certain 3-dimensional color space model: one axis represents the brightness (L = "Luminescence") and the other two axes represent the different color values (a = red - green, b = yellow - blue), where a and b can have positive and negative values.

​•​A suitable ICC profile for the output device is activated for the output. This profile matches the image data to the output device (monitor, printer) or output process (offset printing). As a result of this, the image data are again device-specific.

The ICC profiles can be present in different ways during gamut mapping:

​•​Embedded ICC profiles: The ICC profiles are contained in the document file and are used during the respective transformation steps.

​•​ICC profiles that are not embedded: The ICC profiles must be available as separate files on the Prinect Server. They are selected in the Color Management settings and then used for conversion.

The Color Conversion engine of Prinect Production and the Prinect Color Editor software (Acrobat plug-in) support HEIDELBERG's Color Management. With Prinect Production you use HEIDELBERG Color Management also for proofing.

Note: You can invoke an introductory documentation to Color Management taking into account Prinect Color Carver by clicking:
Prinect Color Management– User's Guide

"on" list box

In this box, you can select which engine will be used for color conversion if there are a number of computers with a Color Conversion engine each in your system environment. If you set "AllColorCarvers", the engine that is first available and not working to capacity at that moment will be used. This setting does not affect your workflow if there is only one Color Conversion engine available.