EasyMedia

Addendum to the Reference Manual

Caldera V9
25/10/2011

 Caldera 2011
Caldera® and all Caldera products mentioned in this publication are trademarks of Caldera
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Table of contents
EasyMedia – Print ................................................................................................................................ 1
Overview of the calibration process .............................................................................................................1
Creating a Media project..............................................................................................................................3
Selecting the printer .........................................................................................................................3
Creating a new media ......................................................................................................................5
Setting up the print parameters ........................................................................................................6
The Project Manager........................................................................................................................7
Ink Transitions .............................................................................................................................................9
Overview .........................................................................................................................................9
Linearization ..............................................................................................................................................11
Overview .......................................................................................................................................11
Running the wizard........................................................................................................................13

Initialization ......................................................................................................................13

Selecting/Printing/Measuring the target ............................................................................14

Building the linearization curves ...................................................................................................15

The Pmax Editor in Spectral mode....................................................................................15

The Pmax Editor in Density mode ....................................................................................20

Analyzing a density curve in CMYKcm ...........................................................................22

The Curves editor..............................................................................................................24
Printing a test target .......................................................................................................................24
Ink limiting.................................................................................................................................................26
Overview .......................................................................................................................................26
Running the wizard........................................................................................................................28

Initialization ......................................................................................................................28

Selecting and printing the target........................................................................................29

Setting up the Ink Limit .................................................................................................................30
Printing a test target .......................................................................................................................32
Profiling .....................................................................................................................................................32
Overview .......................................................................................................................................32
Running the wizard........................................................................................................................34

Initialization ......................................................................................................................34

Selecting the target............................................................................................................35

Printing the target..............................................................................................................36

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Measuring the target..........................................................................................................37

Building the profile........................................................................................................................38

The main profiling options................................................................................................38

The separation options ......................................................................................................40

Computing the profile .......................................................................................................41

The profile statistics ..........................................................................................................42

Printing a test target .......................................................................................................................43
Finishing the project...................................................................................................................................44
Advanced topics.........................................................................................................................................46
Printer's state, and choosing the right parameters ..........................................................................46
Ink transitions ................................................................................................................................53
Transition curves ...........................................................................................................................55
Total ink limiting ...........................................................................................................................55
Editing a project.............................................................................................................................55
Media patches ................................................................................................................................55

Creating a media patch......................................................................................................55

Installing a media patch ....................................................................................................55

Importing calibration files..............................................................................................................55
Importing measure files .................................................................................................................55
The measuring devices...................................................................................................................55

Barbieri Spectro LFP ........................................................................................................55

Barbieri SpectroSwing ......................................................................................................55

Caldera TotalColor............................................................................................................55

Caldera Swing...................................................................................................................55
Xrite / GretagMacbeth EyeOne.........................................................................................55

Xrite / GretagMacbeth EyeOne IO .....................................................................................55

Xrite DTP-41 ....................................................................................................................55

GretagMacbeth Spectroscan..............................................................................................55

GretagMacbeth SpectroLino .............................................................................................55

Xrite DTP-32 ....................................................................................................................55

Xrite DTP-34 ....................................................................................................................55

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)...........................................................................................................55
EasyMedia – Monitors ....................................................................................................................... 55
Choosing the project ..................................................................................................................................55
Selecting the operation...............................................................................................................................55
Choosing the procedure..............................................................................................................................55
Selecting the type of monitor .....................................................................................................................55
Selecting the reference target .....................................................................................................................55
Choosing the colorimeter ...........................................................................................................................55

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Calibrating the colorimeter ........................................................................................................................55

Measurements ............................................................................................................................................55
Profile size .................................................................................................................................................55
Viewing the profile ....................................................................................................................................55

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EasyMedia – Print

T his addendum document deals with the EasyMedia component of the Caldera
software. It will explain how to use it to properly calibrate the colors for all your
printing jobs.

Overview of the calibration process

A little bit of terminology to begin with: the word “calibration”, when applied to a graphic
device, normally denotes the operation of putting the device into a stable, reproducible
state (with a printer, for example, it should involve cleaning the heads, printing a noozle
test, etc.).

When applied to a Media (here as well as in the rest of the Reference Manual, we call
media any material that could be used for digital printing), it does not seem to mean
anything: what would you do with a media to put it in a stable state? So, it usually implies
everything that is needed in order to print correctly on it—however, please note that even
in that extended meaning, it is a clear abuse of language, because it is not only the media,
but also the rest of the material (printer and inks), and the software, and the software
settings, and many other things, that are involved in the print process.

So, in fact, it is neither a calibration nor a media; nevertheless we will adopt in this
manual the usual terminology and call the whole task a media calibration (or, sometimes,
just a calibration, if the meaning is understandable enough in context)1.

So from now on, “calibrating” means “everything you need to do to print correctly on
your media”. But before starting the job, you must first create a Media Project. A media
project is a combination of settings that makes a print configuration unique. It is defined
by a printer, a media, a printing mode (CMYK, CMYKcm, etc.), a resolution, and for
certain printers a printing quality. All these parameters need to be defined before you
begin the calibration. How to do that is detailed in chapter 2, Creating a Media Project.

Once you have created the project, you will be able to access the Project Manager, which
controls all the steps of the calibration process. In EasyMedia, this process is made of
three main steps:

1. Setting up the Ink Transition parameters, to define the way the Light and Dark
inks will be used (if your printer does not have light inks, this step will of course
be skipped). This step is described in chapter 3, Ink Transitions.

2. Setting up the Linearization, which is divided into two sub-steps: the first is the
linearization itself (curves and individual ink limitation for each ink, sometimes

1
An alternative would be a “media profiling”, but this would also create confusion with the building of the ICC
profile, which is just one of the steps involved

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known as “ink restrictions”), and the second is the global ink limitation. This step is
described in chapter 4, Linearization, and chapter 5, Ink Limiting.

3. Building an ICC Profile (or just “Profiling”) which will allow you to use color
management with your media. This step is described in chapter 6, Profiling.

Each of these steps is controlled by a specialized wizard. The basic process is as follows
(with some variants, depending on the exact step):

 Select a target.

 Print the target.

 Measure the print.

 Set up the calibration parameters.

 Select and print a test target.

 Validate the result or modify the parameters.

This process is not entirely automated. You will have to take certain decisions here,
because media calibration is not an exact science. EasyMedia will always suggest you
some reasonable values, based on the measurement of the targets, but in many cases, you
will have to deviate from these values, and make your own choices.

Finally, the Project Manager will allow you to save the project files, as described in
chapter VII, and thus to use your media in your usual Print Workflow.

NOTE: Even if your printer does not have light inks (or if you don't want to use them),
you should strictly follow the order of the steps presented in this tutorial, and read the
chapter 3 entirely. This is because some of the procedures (e.g. printing, measuring the
targets...) that are common to all the steps of the calibration are explained and detailed in
this chapter only, in order to avoid text repetitions

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Creating a Media project

Selecting the printer

If it is not already done, open EasyMedia. Then select the Printer icon, and click the Next
button.

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Select your printer and click the Next button again.

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Creating a new media

The Media window displays the list of available medias for your printer and, for each of them,
the number of Projects (i.e. Print Configurations) already created. You can either select an
existing media for your Project, or create a new one with the New button.

The parameters to set up for the new media are:

 Its name (here, MyGlossyPaper).

 Optionally, its cost (for CostProof).
 Other settings, depending on the printer, in the Parameters tab.

If the Parameters tab is not greyed out, you also need to open this tab and select some
initial values for your media. For example, for the Seiko ColorPainter64S, you would
have to select the temperature of the Heaters and the feed adjustment:

An Epson StylusPro9880 printer

Please note that these values can still be modified during the calibration; therefore, you
can keep the default values at first.

Once all the parameters are set, click the OK button to finish creating the media, then
click the Next button to continue.

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Setting up the print parameters

If you’ve created a new media in the previous step, the list of available Projects should be
empty. Click the New button to create a new one.

In the creation window, you will be prompted for the Print settings to use in your project,
which are just the printing mode (CMYK, CMYKcm, etc.) and the resolution. Select the
configuration you want to calibrate2, and click the OK button.

Notes:

a) The specific parameters of the printer, such as the number of passes or the
Uni/Bidirectional value, cannot be set at this stage, and are not part of the settings of the
Project. The reason is that normally, they do not affect the ink densities (though
sometimes they do, e.g. an “Overprint” parameter for some printers). However, you will
be able to set them up later during the calibration process.

b) You cannot select the screening in EasyMedia. The “Stochastic” screening will be used
for all prints. However, the resulting calibration can also be used with the “Error diffusion”
screening, because both generate the same ink densities. As for the Halftone screening,
whose densities are very different, it is not currently supported by EasyMedia. If you want to
make a profile for Halftones, you will have to use the normal Print interface to print the
targets, then go back to EasyMedia to measure them.

c) You cannot create two different projects for the same configuration. If you need to do
that (e.g. to experiment, or to make a “variant” profile), you will have to create a new
Media with a different name, then a Project for this media.

Once the Project is created, the window should look like this:

2
This tutorial assumes that you have selected here a printing mode with Light Inks

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The Status field displays the <Empty> string, which means that everything is still to be done.
Now click the Next button to open the Project Manager and begin the calibration process.
Please take note that once you have entered the Project Manager, all the parameters that
define your project (Media, resolution, and printing mode) are set up once and for all—you
won't be allowed to change them3—and will be used automatically for the printing of all
targets, thus preventing you from making any mistake.

The Project Manager

The next window, the Status window, displays the current status of your project.

3
However, as already mentioned, you will be allowed to modify the Media parameters (e.g. heater temperature)

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As said in chapter 1, there are three main steps to achieve the calibration: Ink Transitions,
Linearization (which is divided in two sub-steps), and Profiling. All the settings for a
given step are stored in a separate file (for the profile, it is a standard ICC profile; for the
other ones, it is just a plain text file). The Status window displays a summary of the
current state of the project, i.e. which steps have been achieved, and which ones remain to
be performed. You can go back to this window at any stage during the calibration
process, to check the current status of the project, and possibly save it. You can also exit
the Project Manager (after saving) and resume the process later exactly at the same stage.

Note that the three (or four) steps must be done exactly in that order. Furthermore, you
normally should not modify anything in a given step when the next step has been already
performed (or, if you modify something, you should redo all the following steps). The
reason is that the settings of a given step are used to print the targets of all the subsequent
steps, thus they have an effect on how you (or EasyMedia) analyze the results of the
readings.

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Now click the Next button again (or the Transition button on the top of the status
window) to begin the calibration.

Ink Transitions
Overview

The aim of this step is to have your printer properly use the light and dark inks. But first,
without going into too many details, we will explain roughly how a CMYKcm device
works, compared to a CMYK device.

Let's suppose you have a certain amount of Cyan to print, e.g. 20%. If you print in
CMYK, there is no problem, and you will print 20% of Cyan. On the other hand, on a
CMYKcm device, you will want to use the light cyan, because it will increase the
apparent resolution of the print (in other words, it will reduce the graininess).

But what amount of light cyan will you print instead? 50%? 60%? This is one of the
questions you must answer in this step. Another question would be: in the low densities,
you will want to use only light ink, but there is a certain point after which you will rather
want to begin using dark cyan. Later on, there will be another point at which you may
want to stop using light ink, i.e. printing with dark cyan only (you certainly do not want to
print on the same area, say, 90% of dark cyan and 50% of light cyan, because there is a
good chance it will only be a waste of ink).

So these two key points must be defined. After this, you must also define some
“separation curves” that will be used to separate an input Cyan into a Light and a Dark
component.

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Before explaining how you will do that, let's have a look at the shape these curves will
take:

As you can see, the introduction of dark cyan is here at 25%, and the light cyan stops at
75%. Also in this example, you can see that before 25%, the light cyan curve is a straight
line of a 2.0 slope, which means that to print a certain quantity of cyan, twice this quantity
of light cyan will be used.

In EasyMedia, you cannot freely set up these curves: it would be too complicated. Rather,
the curves are computed according to the 3 parameters we have introduced: the initial
slope of the light ink curve (which physically represents the “ratio” between the dark and
the light ink, i.e. how much denser the dark ink is compared to the light ink), the
introduction point of the dark ink, and the stop point of the light ink. To define these
parameters, you will be assisted by the Ink Transition Wizard that will make you print,
measure, and analyze two targets: one printed with light ink only, and the other with dark
ink only.

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Linearization
Overview

The goal of the linearization is to set up 4 curves, one per process ink, that the print driver
will use to transform input densities (as they appear in the image file, or as they are
generated by the Color Management System) into output densities, also called “ink
densities”, or “printer densities”. Here is an example of a set of curves:

If these curves would be applied on a print, the print driver would, for example, transform
a patch of 4x50% into 4x25% (approximately), before screening and sending the dots to
the printer.

If you look at these curves, you will note that an input cyan of 100% would be printed
only at 80% (approximately). This is called restricting the cyan. Setting the correct ink
restrictions (or individual maximum amount of ink, as opposed to global maximum
amount of ink) is in itself a sub-step of the linearization process, and probably the most
important one. The other one consists in determining the exact shape of the curve,
between 0% and the maximum (also called Pmax).

There are many reasons why you would like to restrict the ink usage, and we will explain
some of them in the process. There are also many ways of defining the shape of the
curves. Most of them are algorithmic, so you will not have to place all the control points
manually (though you can do it that way if you want). EasyMedia offers a few different
methods. Deciding which one to choose depends a lot upon whether you want to use a
Color Management System (i.e. ICC profiles) or not.

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 If you want to use an ICC profile, then the linearization should only be thought as
a “preparatory” step for printing a correct ICC target, i.e. a target where the ink
does not bleed, does not bend the paper, and where the patches cover the widest
gamut possible, as uniformly as possible. You should have no particular
expectation of the color given by 50% cyan, a combination of 100% cyan and
100% magenta, or any other combination, because there will be no way for you to
print these values directly. Thus, the exact shape of the linearization curve has
little interest for you4.

 If you want to print without an ICC profile, then the situation is different. The
linearization curves will entirely determine the output of the print process, so you
need to be more careful. EasyMedia contains some predefined “target-curves”,
defined by a dmax/dot gain couple for each ink. You will have to select
whichever standard fits to your print process, and you will also have to run the
“trial-and-error” method to set up a correct grey-balance (EasyMedia doesn't have
any method to “optimize the grey balance”). Please also note that you will have to
read in (optical) density mode, so you need a densitometer, or a
spectrophotometer-densitometer.

In this tutorial, we will cover both approaches, although with a focus on the first one,
since using an ICC profile is the normal way to proceed in modern digital printing. Both
require using the Wizard to print and measure a linearization target, so the beginning is
common to both methods.

4
In case you are preparing a profile for proofing or for simulation, it is a little bit more complex than that: indeed,
you would want to be able to optimize your linearization to match as closely as possible the simulated or proofed
gamut. EasyMedia has an included support for doing that, but this is an advanced topic that will not be covered
by this tutorial

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Running the wizard

Initialization
If you've completed the previous step (Ink Transitions), you should now be in the main
menu of the linearization step. So check that the Run Wizard option is selected, and click
the Next button.

Note: If you want to save your Transition curves before going on (that may be a good
idea), you can click the Status button, then save the project and click the Linearization
button to get back to this window.

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Selecting/Printing/Measuring the target

These 3 steps have already been detailed in the previous chapter, so we will now focus on
the specific aspects of the linearization.

Several targets are available. Again, which one to select depends a lot on your measuring
device. As for the sampling step, 5% is usually enough. We suggest using the CMYK
target, 5% step with composite patches. This target contains a few 2-, 3- and even 4-color
patches on the left side of the print (these go up to 400%). These patches are not supposed
to be measured, but they will give you a rough idea of the inking capacity of the media,
which is often good to know in order to set up a correct linearization.

Once you have selected the correct target, click the Next button, then print the target
(please refer to the corresponding section in the Transition chapter for all the details about
the print options). If you have selected a target with composite patches, and know that
your media will not support the highest densities, be careful to set up at least a global ink
clipping.

Once it is printed, you may need to wait some time until it is not only dry, but until the
colors are stabilized, too, before measuring it. With certain types of inks, you may have
the feeling that the print is dry, yet the colors are still changing. This “stabilizing time”
can go from nothing up to two or three days, depending on the model of the printer and
on the inks. Usually, however, it does not depend on the media, so you can use the same
drying time for all your prints (the printer manufacturer should know it).

As for which measurement mode to use to measure a Linearization target, spectral vs.
density (supposing you can use both), it depends on your goal: if you want to build an

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ICC profile for your media, read in spectral mode. If you do not want to use an ICC
profile and/or if you want to linearize with respect to a dotgain/dmax target, then read in
density mode.5

Building the linearization curves

After reading the linearization target, you will be able to set up the ink restrictions and the
linearization parameters in the Pmax Editor. Here, we will suppose first that the target
was read in spectral mode; then we will explain the differences when it is read in density
mode.

The Pmax Editor in Spectral mode

The graph displays the output density curves, as measured by the spectrophotometer. The
input percentages are shown in abscissa, and the measured densities in ordinate6. All the

5
If you only have a densitometer, and want to use an ICC profile, you can measure the densities; it is not
incompatible. However, you will probably need to have the profiling target measured by someone else, since you
cannot read a profiling target with a densitometer

6
Please note that “density” here has nothing to do with optical density. It is a spectral density, i.e. some values
derived from the Lab measures, according to a proprietary algorithm (there is no standard).

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densities are displayed in relative mode, so the four curves go up to a maximum of

100%—though 100% of black does not mean the same as 100% of yellow, of course.

What you need to do in this window is to set up the maximum percentage you want to use
for each ink (it is labelled Pmax in the window). The Dmax value represents the
corresponding output density of the current Pmax. You can either enter directly the Pmax
values, or enter the Dmax, in which case the corresponding Pmax will be automatically
computed.

Moreover, if you click the Cyan button on the right of the window, you will have access
to control bars that allow you to graphically select (with the mouse) either the Pmax or the
Dmax.

So what is the optimum Pmax to select? Basically, it is the value above which there is no
more significant increase in output density. In our example, it is obvious that printing
100% of cyan has no interest, because 90% already gives the same density. Moreover, if
your media does not support a high quantity of ink, restricting to 90% is a good idea: it
will make the global ink limiting easier to perform.

By default, EasyMedia will select itself as Pmax the values that output a Dmax of 99%
(you can click the Auto button to reset to the default values, if you have modified them).

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This will optimize the potential gamut, and at the same time prevents the use of too much
ink. You may have many reasons, though, to raise this value (sometimes) or to or lower it
(often):

 Visually check the printed patches. The measuring device will not detect most of
the problems caused by over-inking (bleeding, cockling, etc.), so if you see a
problem with the Pmax detected by EasyMedia, you will have to lower it7.

 Visually check that the ink completely covers the media at the selected Pmax.
Although it is seldom, it may happen that some grain, such as the paper being
seen through the ink, remains at 90% and not at 100%.

 If you suspect that your media will not support much ink in combination, then
you may slightly lower the Pmax. At that point, you should have a rough idea of
the Ink Limitation you will have to apply (especially if you printed the default
linearization target, which contains combined patches). If, for example, you think
that your Ink Limit will be around 150%, then do not select 100% for the four
inks: this would lead to a very unbalanced gamut, and may cause some
inconsistencies when building the profile. On the other hand, if your media
supports 300% or more, then go on and select the highest Pmax. As a general
rule, do not set any Pmax higher than the expected Ink Limit divided by two8.

When you are ready, click the Next button to compute the linearization curves.

NOTE: In spectral reading, EasyMedia uses by default a straight linear target curve, which
means that if you print the linearization patches again with the linearization curves applied, and
read this target in spectral mode, the output densities will be a straight line. However, it is
possible to select a different target. Please see the FAQ for this.

Here are a few examples of problematic curves, and how to deal with them:

7
Correcting the measurement errors is done on the linearization curves rather than on the measured curves. It is impossible to
modify the measures

8
In EasyMedia, the global Ink Limit is expressed in ink densities (i.e. is applied after the linearization), so we
speak here of the same densities. For more details, see the next chapter (Ink Limiting).

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 A curve which is going down again for high densities shows a saturation, so you must
avoid this part of the curve.

 A curve going upward quickly and then slowing down without saturation shows
that after a given ink quantity, adding more ink does not really change the
resulting density. In this case, adding more ink would be just a waste, so we will
stop when the curve slows down.

 A curve with a “belly” shows a lack of density resulting from too much light ink.
If it is too pronounced, you must go back to the ink transitions, lower the light ink
ratio, and redo the linearization, including printing and measuring the target.

If the profile is done without light inks, the problem comes from a wrong balance
between different ink dots (variable dot). In that case, if the printer has a dot gain
adjustment (usually in the media parameters), you should try lowering the ratio of
small and medium dots; otherwise just go on with the profiling process.

A small “belly” can also be compensated by the transition process.

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"Belly" around 25 % Lack of density around 60 %

 A curve with high densities in accordion (no apparent saturation) shows either a
saturation which fooled the measurement device, or a measurement error due to
media grain (canvas, textiles, some banners ).

 In case of saturation, we advise just limiting before the problem if the problem
doesn't affect too low densities. However you can usually rely to the smoothing
done by the computation of correction curves.

 If the media is particularly grainy or textured (textiles, canvas, PVC banner…), or

if the resolution is too low, we advise you to measure again using a wider aperture
on the measuring device or selecting a multiple measure option.

 For EyeOne and TotalColor targets, black lines separate the patches for yellow
high densities. If they seem blurry or bleeding, it is a good indication that the ink
acceptance is somehow low.

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The Pmax Editor in Density mode

The editor looks quite the same for a density reading, except that the graph displays by
default the Optical Density data, whose curves are very different.

You can choose to display the Dot Area values (in percentage) instead, by clicking this
option on the top of the window.

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The principle is the same when it comes to selecting the Pmax: you can directly enter the
percentage, or you can enter the density you want to reach, in the Dmax fields. By default,
EasyMedia will use a straight line as target, i.e. will try to match a density curve without
any Dot Gain. If you want to select a Dot Gain, you must click the Target button, and
select the Use Dmax/DotGain curve as target option.

In this window, you can set up both the Dmax and the Dot gain you want to match (here, for
example, the Web-Offset standard). Once again, when you change the Dmax, EasyMedia
will automatically select the corresponding Pmax in the main window.

Please note that when you select this option, a second set of curves (the target curves) will
be displayed in the editor. You can hide/show these curves with the Display Target button
in the top right part of the window.

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Analyzing a density curve in CMYKcm

As it has been mentioned in the Overview of the Transition process, with proper
transition curves, you should obtain the same type of curves as in CMYK mode.
However, they will most likely differ a little bit. A typical density curve made with light
and dark ink should look like this:

Note that the curve starts normally, then flattens a little bit between 25 and 50%, and gets
back to the normal shape after 50%. This is due to the fact that the light ink does not
provide a sufficient increase in density past 25%. Still, this is acceptable, and the
linearization can easily correct this artefact. Here is the resulting output curve:

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Now, let’s consider the following output curve:

Here, the “flattening” effect is really marked, and you should not go on with the
linearization if you get such a curve. Instead, you should go back to the Transition editor
(or to the Transition Wizard) and try to correct the problem, which is that the dark ink
starts at too late a point. If you continue, you will end up with curves that look as follows:

Note the jump around 75%, which will likely cause some problems on a gradation of cyan.

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The Curves editor

The next window displays the final linearization curves, as computed by EasyMedia with
the Pmax values and the requested target curves (if any).

Here you can still modify the curves by moving the control points. You can also click the
Numbers toggle on the top left of the window, to examine and/or modify the exact values.

Normally, you should not modify the curves at that point, because they are the result of
measure and computation. However, you should inspect the placing of the control points,
in case there has been an obvious measurement error. For example, if suddenly the yellow
curve were to decrease from 60% to 55%, and then increases again normally, you could
move the failing control point manually.

Printing a test target

After clicking the Next button, it will become possible for you to either validate the
linearization curves, or to print a test target, after which you will be able to modify the
curves (or maybe to go back to the Pmax Editor), in case something has gone wrong. The
procedure is strictly identical to the one described in the previous chapter (Transition
curves), so we won’t detail everything here.

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If you intend to build an ICC profile immediately after (or more exactly, after setting up
the Ink Limitation), there is no reason for you to print a test target now. As already said,
you do not expect anything special for any ink combination. You do not expect any
special grey balance, or the 100%M-100%Y combination to be a special red, because
setting up the colors is the job of the ICC profile. If you want, you can print a target with
gradients to check that there is no obvious tonal discontinuity, but it is difficult to judge
visually. If you print a target that contains a CMY gradation, do not worry if it has a
greenish or brownish cast: again, this does not have any importance.

On the other hand, if you want to print without any ICC profile, then the calibration is
finished, apart from the Ink Limitation. You now need to check that the output matches
your expectation. In particular, you could print the Greyscale target to check the grey
balance9.

Also, do not forget that you can load any TIFF file (from the target menu), or drag and
drop any image from the image bar, if you want to print your own custom test file.

9
The greyscale target is a Greyscale TIFF file, not a CMYK. All the greys will be printed using equal quantities
of C, M and Y (and no black at all). If it's not what you want to print, use another target

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Ink limiting
Overview

The next step consists in setting up the Ink Limit, or Global Maximum amount of ink.
This consists in a single number (between 1% and 400%) that you will want to use as a
maximum inking value for all the prints. The goal here is to avoid bleeding, cockling, or
any other artefact caused by over-inking. The way the Ink Limit is used by the print driver
is that all pixels with a total ink value (in other words, the sum of the 4 percentages)
higher than this limit will be “clipped”, i.e. the percentages will be lowered to reach
exactly that limit.

As it has already been said, that step is normally included in the Linearization process—in
fact, this number is stored in the same file as the linearization curves. This is the reason why
there are only 3 files in the Status window. However, for clarity purposes, it has been
implemented as a different procedure. Moreover, to do it optimally, you need to know the
individual ink restrictions. In reality, though, the two steps could be done in parallel, since
they do not influence each other. So this is an exception to the rule mentioned in the
Calibration Overview that says that when you modify a setting in a given step, it invalidates
all the previous steps already completed.

A little bit of technical clarification is necessary there, because this may hurt what you
have learned from the calibration processes in other RIPs. In most of them, the Ink Limit
is expressed in linearized densities10, while in EasyMedia (and in the whole Print system
of Caldera), it is expressed in ink densities. It is very important to understand the
difference, and in order to explain it, we will give you an example.

Let’s suppose that we've set up the following linearization curves:

10
These can also be called “input densities”. The expression “linearized densities” is somewhat confusing,
because the linearization is applied to the input densities, so one may say as well that they are linearized after, and
unlinearized before. However, it would be odd to speak of linearized densities when it comes to printer densities,
the latter being absolutely non linear

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As you can see, all the densities are approximately divided by two. Now, with an Ink
Limit expressed in ink densities, the potential maximum of the limit is approximately
4x50% = 200%. But when it is expressed in input densities, it is still 400%. The important
point is that in Caldera software, the global ink clipping is applied after linearization: so
the global ink limit is defined in ink densities. This is a post-linearization clipping, while
the other one is a pre-linearization clipping.

Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. The Pre-linearization clipping is easier
to understand, because the value of the limit is more stable (usually between 300 and
400%), while it varies enormously in Post-linearization. On the other hand, with the Pre-
linearization method, the linearization and the ink clipping must be implemented as
different steps in the calibration process. This is because 360% in Pre-linearization, for
example, does not have the same meaning if you change the linearization curves, while
150% in Post-linearization is independent of the linearization (it is a quantity of ink). So,
you can use the same target for linearization and ink limiting with the Post-linearization
method, while with the other one you need to print separate targets.

We also think that the Post-linearization method is more accurate, and accuracy is
important here. You need to realize that, when we say that the ink limit is 250%, what we
mean is that all combinations of CMYK higher than 250% are bad, and that all the other
combinations are good. This is of course greatly simplified, and it certainly does not work
that way (it is done this way so that the calibration process won’t be too long and too
complicated). At least, in Post-linearization, 250% is a fixed quantity of ink, so one may
hope that it will lead to the same problems (or lack thereof) no matter what the underlying
CMYK combination is. At the same time, with the Pre-linearization method, 250% will
lead, after linearization, to different quantities of ink (unless the four curves are exactly
the same, which is not very usual), and does not correspond to any physical data related to
the printer.

This being said, the process for setting up the Ink Limit is quite simple: it only requires
printing a target, examining it, and deciding what the limit is. There is no measure
involved (a measure cannot detect the problems caused by over-inking).

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Running the wizard

Initialization
Once you have finished the previous step (Linearization), you should normally find
yourself in the main menu of the Ink Limit process.

At that point, you could also use the Enter the limit manually option, which allows you to
enter directly the ink limit value, without printing any target. Since there is nothing to
measure, it is an option you will probably use sometimes, especially if you have already
printed composite patches in the linearization step. For the time being, select the wizard
and click the Next button.

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Selecting and printing the target

The default Ink Limit target is labelled “Dynamic Target”. It is an image that will be
generated “on the fly” by EasyMedia, and optimized for the current ink restrictions. It
looks like the following:

“Optimized for the current ink restrictions” means that this image will not contain patches
with a total inking greater than the sum of the 4 Pmax (which is, in our case, 340%). Also,

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this image will not contain patches that are incompatible with the restrictions (for
example, if the Pmax on both cyan and magenta is 90%, the Pure blue patch will be at
180%, and not at 200%).

The other targets are fixed, and, like this one, contain a density increase of 10% per column,
with different ink combinations for each line. They may be helpful in certain contexts—for
example, if you absolutely need to know your Ink Limit in order to decide on the ink
restrictions, or if your printer has a one day long drying time (in this case, you probably
would not want to waste a day just to be able to print the optimized target).

Whatever the target you decide to select, the process remains the same after that: click the
Next button, print the target (possibly with a clipping, since by definition this kind of
target contains a lot of high-density patches), and click the Next button again.

Setting up the Ink Limit

Now you need to examine the target closely, and, proceeding from left to right, to identify
the location of the last column whose patches are all printed correctly. It is difficult to list
all the possible unwanted effects caused by over-inking, which differ very much
depending on the printer and the media. Ink may bleed, bend the material in a number of
different ways, not mix correctly, etc. So, inspect the target carefully, and look for any
effect that you do not want to see on your final prints.

Here is an example of bleeding, although it is a little bit extreme:

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Once you have located your ink limit, enter the value in the field labelled Total Ink Limit.
As for the other option, always select Preserve black ink (the other one is for
compatibility with previous versions of the Caldera RIP).

At this point, you may realize that your Ink Limit is too low compared to the individual ink
restrictions you have previously set up. Remember the rule stated in the previous chapter: the
ink limit should not be lower than twice the average of the four Pmax values. If this is the
case, go back to the linearization step, and lower the restrictions. After that, you can print the
dynamic target again (or not—it is not always useful).

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Printing a test target

As usual, after you click the Next button, you will be asked whether you want to print a
test target or not. The so-called “bleeding target” may be useful to print.

This target contains some text elements, at different sizes, and with different
foregrounds/backgrounds. If you cannot read the smaller text, it means that there is a
problem in the ink limit, or in the ink restrictions, or even both. Whether this is important or
not depends on your application. If it is likely to become a problem for you, you will need to
lower the inking somewhere. This way, you will lose in ink density, and maybe in gamut;
therefore you need to find the correct compromise here.

Profiling
Overview

We are now reaching the last and decisive step of the calibration: building the ICC
profile. Please note immediately that, while everything else in EasyMedia is free (it
comes with any Caldera product), computing an ICC profile requires licence keys. If you
do not have these keys, you will be able to go through all the steps (including printing and

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measuring the ICC targets), until you reach the last window, which computes the profile.
There, you will get an error message11.

Everything you did until now was only to make your printer use the inks in a proper and
optimized fashion. Everything was related to inks, and nothing to colors. The goal of the
profiling is, simply said, to establish a mapping between all the colors that exist in nature
and the colors that are available in your printer (or, more exactly, in your current print
process, which includes the media and the print configuration, as well as the current
linearization and transition curves). Without detailing too much, this mapping is
implemented as a look-up table from the LAB space (it is the space in which colors are
measured by a spectrophotometer) to the CMYK space of the printer.

How is this table computed? The idea is quite simple:

 Print a profiling target, which is an image containing a lot of patches.

 Measure this target with a spectrophotometer. From this measure, the CMYK to
LAB table is computed—it's easy, since the CMYK values of the printed patches
are known in advance.

 The LAB to CMYK table is computed as the inverse of the previous table.

Of course, this is a huge simplification of all the computations involved. Especially,

building the inverse of the CMYK to LAB table is very difficult—this operation is called
Gamut Mapping, and there are lots of ways to do it. Besides, the majority of options
available to build the ICC profiles are related to gamut mapping.

Here, you may want to ask why options are available. Isn't ICC profiling supposed to be
the way to print exact colors, without human intervention? The answer is that it is a little
bit more complicated than that. This would be (almost) true for a perfect printer that
would cover the entire LAB gamut, i.e. be able to print all the possible colors. But in the
facts, such a printer does not exist, and you are faced with two different problems:

 Out-of-gamut colors must be printed in a way or another. However, for a given

out-of-gamut color, there may be no obvious choice for which one is the closest
in the gamut of the printer.

 There may be more than one way to print a given in-gamut color. For example, a
neutral grey may usually be printed with more or less black ink.

Thus, here again, you will have to make choices, and retain the options that work best for
your media.

11
EasyMedia includes the LOGO engine from XRite, the same engine that is used in ProfileMaker, with exactly
the same features. If you already own ProfileMaker (or any other Profiling Package), you will be able to build the
profiles with this package, then to import them into EasyMedia (the procedure is explained below and in chapter
8, Importing calibration files)

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Running the wizard

Initialization
The process starts in the Profiling main menu.

If you have an external ICC profile software and want to import a profile, select
Load/Import an existing file, then see chapter 8 (Importing a calibration file); otherwise
select Run Wizard, and click the Next button. Please note that even if you use an external
software, you will have to run the Wizard to begin with, at least to print the ICC target,
and possibly to measure it.

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Selecting the target

There are many types of targets available for profiling, and they vary considerably in size
and in number of patches. The number of patches is very important for the quality of the
profile; therefore, if you want a high-quality profile, select the target that has the highest
number of patches, amongst those that are compatible with your measurement device.

In this example, we will use the EyeOne standard target, which contains 320 patches12. It
is not many, but the measurement only takes a few minutes.

12
We advise not using this target for a high quality profile.

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Printing the target

Here, you need to adjust the print parameters, then click Print to print the target (please
refer to the Ink Transitions > Running the Wizard > Printing the targets section for an
explanation of all the options).

Be careful not to activate Ink Clipping at that point, because you’ll absolutely want to use
the linearization and Ink Limit you have set up previously. Also, be careful to respect the
drying time before measuring. For the previous steps, it is not absolutely necessary, but
for this one, it is.

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Measuring the target

Again, you can consult the chapter 2 for all the details about measuring a target with the
EyeOne.

Be careful: measuring an ICC target is much more difficult than measuring a linearization
or transition target. There are more patches, so it takes longer, and you won't notice if you
scan the wrong strip—with a linearization target, if you scan the Cyan instead of the
Magenta, you will notice it immediately. Keep concentrated while scanning, and always
make sure that you are scanning the appropriate strip.

Here as well, do not deactivate the double-reading, whatever the reason. Do not forget
that you can scan from right to left or from left to right (EasyMedia will detect the
direction), so the fastest way to work is to scan in one direction for the first reading, and
in the other direction for the verification reading.

Even more than before, we advise checking again the spectrophotometer's parameters,
especially the aperture of the head. Most of the separation/linearization targets have wide
patches that tolerate any aperture, whereas some profiling targets (2 mm for TotalColor)
do not accept a wide aperture.

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Building the profile

The main profiling options

After the reading, you will have to set up a few options to build the profile.

 The Profile Size is the approximate output size of the generated file. The default is
Medium (approximately 700 Kb). Raising it to Large may slightly improve the
profile’s accuracy, but not by much, if the linearization on the printer is well-
done.

 The Perceptual rendering determines how the neutral (grey) colors are to be
rendered, in case the white of your media is not perfectly neutral–which is usually
the case. If you select Preserve grey axis, the profile will try to compensate for the
non-neutrality of the media, and greys will be printed as really neutral, if possible.
If you select Paper grey axis, then the entire grey axis will be shifted in the
direction of the media white (for example, if you use a green paper, the greys will

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be printed as green). This is the default, because our perception of neutrality

depends a lot on the white of the media13.

 The Gamut Mapping makes available three variants for the mapping of the LAB
values into the CMYK color space of the printer. This mainly concerns the
mapping of out-of-gamut colors, but may have an effect on the whole spectrum. It
is very difficult to predict the effect of this setting, since it depends a lot on the
printer, the media, the inks, etc. The default is LOGO Classic. If rendering rich
and bright colors (especially reds) is problematic, try LOGO Colorful instead14.

 The Optical Brightener correction option tries to compensate for the presence of
optical brighteners in the substrate, often found in very white, bright papers15. You
may want to enable this option if a yellow cast is visible on the grey axis when
printing. Most often in this case, you should also activate Preserve grey axis.

 The Viewing Light Source allows you to set up the light source under which your
prints are to be viewed—because of metamerism effects, colors usually looks
different when seen under different light sources, e.g. the grey axis may look
neutral under daylight, and exhibit a green cast under a fluorescent light.
For a general-purpose profile, always keep the CIE default, D50. Otherwise,
select which one fits your needs, or open a Custom light source16.

You can come back to the default values using the Reset button.

13
This setting does not affect the colorimetric rendering, nor the absolute rendering (the ICC specifications
require Paper grey axis in the first case, and Preserve grey axis in the second case, but nothing is specified for the
perceptual rendering).

14
The Gamut Mapping option does have an effect on the Colorimetric and Absolute renderings, though far less
important than in Perceptual rendering

15
If this option is greyed out, it means that either no optical brighteners have been found, or that the measurement
file does not contain spectral data

16
Here again, you need to have a spectral data measurement file to use this option, otherwise it will be greyed
out.

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The separation options

The second (and last) set of options for the profiling concerns the Black Generation options.

These options determine how you want to use the inks to print neutral greys, and mainly
how much black you want to use.

– The Separation Method is the base algorithm. You can select one of the four levels of
GCR (GCR4 using the more black ink, and GCR1 the less), or UCR (which uses even
less black ink than GCR). The two other options, No Black and Max Black, will use no
black ink at all and a maximum amount of black, respectively. They should be used for
very special purposes only.

– The Black Start value (expressed in %) is the percentage of C-M-Y above which you
want to introduce the black dots.

– The Max Black value (expressed in %) is the amount of black you want to use for your
darkest composite black. It should normally always be set to 100%.

– The Max Ink value (expressed in %) is the amount of ink (C+M+Y+K) you want to use
for the darkest composite black. We recommend setting its value around 350%, though it
depends a lot on the printer.

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– Finally, the Black Point values (on the right of the curves) define the components of the
darkest composite black. Normally, you should not enter the values manually. Instead,
EasyMedia computes the Black Point by itself, when the Balance option is checked. It
uses the measurement made on the ICC target to compute the optimal black point, taking
into account your current Max Ink value.

Finally, the separation curves displayed in the graph provide a quick overview of the way
neutral greys will be generated with your profile. However, this is only an indication, and
the final curves will probably differ a little bit.

Note that all the values in this window are expressed in input density and not in ink
density (see the discussion in the preceding chapter). Thus, for example, 400% as Max
Ink correspond exactly to your total Ink Limit, and 100% of cyan in the Black Point
corresponds to the cyan Pmax set in the linearization step.

Computing the profile

Once you have set up all the options, click the Next button. EasyMedia will then begin to
compute the profile.

This process may take a few minutes, after which some statistics about the profile will be
displayed.

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The profile statistics

In the left part of the window, a CMYK image is displayed. It is a soft-proof of what you
would get if you were to print this image with the profile that has just been computed. If
you click the Disable profile button, it will turn to a soft-proof of what you would get if
you were to print it without the profile. Therefore, the first thing you can check here is if it
is better with the profile, the second thing being if there is not any obvious problem
regarding the colors (for example, a red that turns into blue when you switch the profile
on/off). Otherwise, if colors are different, it is absolutely normal (they are probably darker
without the profile).

If the colors look completely wrong, then it probably means that the target has been
incorrectly read. For example, the auto-positioning on the TotalColor may have failed, or
you used reflexive mode instead of transmissive, etc.

In the right part of the window, some profile data is displayed: the creation date, the white
point (in LAB) and the black point (both in perceptual and colorimetric mode).

In the lower part of the window, EasyMedia displays some statistics about the profile,
which are supposed to be a rough indicator of its “quality”. The first number, Self-Gamut,

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measures the internal coherence of the profile: it is the average Delta-E17 you would get if
you printed all the in-gamut colors of the profile. In theory, this number should be zero
(as per the definition of in-gamut colors18), but all the technical limitations of the process
(limitation in the amount of printed patches, limitation of the profile size, etc.), make it so
that usually, you will get a Delta-E between 1.0 and 2.0. If you get more than 3.0, it
means that there is likely a problem.

The second number, Gamut/Swop, is the average Delta-E of your profile compared to the
SWOP gamut. It is a very quick indicator of how well your media will render SWOP
colors. We insist on the fact that this simple number in itself does certainly not quantify
all the complex aspects of gamut comparison. However, if you get a result of 1.5 for a
certain media, and then of 5.0 for another one, you can be almost certain that the first is
better than the second.

Printing a test target

As with all the other steps, you now have the possibility to print a test target. This print
will go through the whole calibration process (transition, linearization and profile), so it is
really the final test for your media.

We will not explain the procedure here, since it has already been described in details in
the previous chapters. Do not forget, too, that you can drag and drop an image from the
Caldera image bar to print your favourite target, in case it does not exist in TIFF.

Moreover, at that point, you could also save the project, and run the normal Print
interface to print your test target. In fact, you will have to do it this way if you want to
activate some advanced options of the Print module. In EasyMedia, the test print will not
process Spot Colors, for instance, and will print everything in Perceptual mode; if you
want to print vectors in colorimetric mode (or disable ICC for vectors, as is sometimes
done for test targets), you will have to use Print.

17
A Delta-E is a number measuring the difference between 2 colors in the LAB space. It should be as small as
possible.

18
However, please note that the Black Generation options may somewhat restrict the theoritical gamut, if you do
not use enough black

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Finishing the project

After the validation of the ICC profile, you should find yourself back to the Status window.

Please note that the three fields are now filled with a file name. EasyMedia automatically
generates the file names (based on the printer's name, the abbreviation of the media—
which is made of the upper characters and the numbers it contains, as well as of the other
print settings). You can rename the files with the Rename button, if you do not like them.

Note also that the status of the project is now Calibration Complete. The Modified label
means that you need to save the project files to be able to use the media in the Print module.
So click the button labelled Save Project to save the files.

You need not specify a directory into which to save the files, because EasyMedia will
install them where they are supposed to be. This is an area where EasyMedia will
considerably simplify the calibration task: it will automatically select the file names, and
save the files at the right place.

Once the project is saved, the Status window will be displayed as follows:

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You are now ready to use your new media in the Print module. To make sure that
everything is correct, open the Print module, select your media, select the correct
resolution and printing mode, and open the dialog box that contains the Color
Management options. It should look like this:

Advanced topics
Printer's state, and choosing the right parameters

Some parameters will slightly affect the print's quality. We will have a deeper look at the
settings usually available on different printers. However the availability of these settings
may vary depending on the selected machine.

Visually check the printed patches. The measuring device will not detect most of the
problems caused by over-inking (bleeding, cockling, etc.), so if you see a problem with
the Pmax detected by EasyMedia, you will have to lower it.

 Nozzle check: before every calibration you should check that every nozzle is firing
correctly. This function is available on most printers' panel.

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This test is read as follows: the lack of a horizontal line shows that the corresponding
nozzle is clogged. If the horizontal line is present, but misplaced, it shows that the
shot is deflected. In either case, you should clean the heads. Sometimes successive
cleanings do not eliminate the deflection; in that case, continuing cleaning is
worthless.

On this picture, we see that when a nozzle does not fire straight, we have a white line
near a darker line. If you are unable to correct the problem, we advise using the
lowest possible head height in order to minimize the deflection, within the media
acceptance.

 Resolution: Choosing the right resolution is done according to different parameters:

 Production speed

 Ink amount to match good densities. Even more on fixed dot printers, low
resolution will usually put less ink and may give insufficient densities. If the dark
inks target, or the linearization target, seems too light, we advise testing with the
equivalent target that includes mixed-ink patches. Not taking in account saturated
patches, if the density is too low, it is a good idea to perform the test with a higher
resolution.

 Output precision: it is worthless to print at 1440 dpi if it is a banner that will be

viewed from a couple of metres away, contrary to an A4 photo.

 Some media need to be printed at a higher resolution in order to lay down the ink
more slowly (transparent films). This parameter is often linked to a smaller dot
size.

 When 720 dpi is often considered as the standard resolution, printer

manufacturers often give the optimal resolutions (e.g. 540x1080 dpi for the
Mimaki JV5).

 For some printers (Canon IPF, HP Z series ), available resolutions depend on the
selected media type (media parameter in the software linked to hardware
adjustments). Caldera chose to abstract these resolutions with generic names
(Canon: “Draft”, “Normal”, “High”). This is why it is not recommended to
change the media type during the calibration. For instance, Canon's “Plain Paper”
is limited to 1200 dpi for the “High” resolution, whereas it is 2400x1200 dpi for
the “Glossy Paper”. So if you switch the media type during the calibration, what
is already done won't have a meaning anymore.

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 For contone modes (Canon RGB, HP Z CMYK), the RIP resolution may be
different from the output resolution (Canon RGB : 600 dpi contone 2400x1200
halftone).

 Number of inks: Using light inks allows to reduce graininess for low densities.
Another benefit is lowering the micro-banding by improving ink coverage.

Without light inks

With light inks

However you should be careful about some limitations when using light inks:

 It is worthless to use light inks in highest densities. You should stop them before.

 Using too much light inks for middle-high and high densities may lead to
insufficient densities, resulting in problems in gradients.

 Using too few light inks will increase the grain, especially for lowest densities.

 More scarcely, too much light ink may cause ink drying issues for middle
densities.

 A profile without light inks may often be more neutral than with light inks.

 Also light inks are more likely to be subject to metamerism, so ink shifts are more
likely to appear when using them.

So you will have to find a balance in light inks usage.

 With some texture media (textiles, canvas…), the interest of using light inks is
limited, since the dots are less visible than the texture of the media, as you can see
in this example:

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Without light inks

With light inks

 On the other hand, more and more printers are equipped with additional inks like
orange-green (hexachrome) or red-green-blue. Those inks allow a gamut increase
and a grain reduction. Management of those inks in Caldera Software varies:

 Canon IPF: you can choose between halftone CMYK and CMYKcm, which
don't use them and are calibrated the standard way, and contone RGB, which
uses embedded profiles from the Canon SDK, but without EasyMedia
calibration for the moment.

 2009 Epson printers: orange and green will be implemented.

 HP Z series: other than classical halftone CMYK and CMYKcmk, a contone

CMYK mode is available and can be profiled under EasyMedia.

 Using photo or matte black: Matte black is used to obtain higher densities on matte
media. It is not recommended to use it on glossy, backlit and film media: resulting
densities and scratch resistance are too low, because pigments do not penetrate the
media.

 Overprint: In order to obtain suitable densities on some media (textiles), some

printers allow you to put more ink in the same place. Be careful when using this
option because using it on medias that do not need it will lead to a worse control of
densities and increased grain.

 Pass number: In the same way it is recommended to paint a wall in successive,

thinner layers, rather than a unique layer, the more passes you select, the more ink
you will be allowed to put on the media, because the ink will dry better. On the other
hand, a higher pass number will lower the print process, so choosing it is a
compromise between speed and quality. Also banding is less visible with a higher
pass number. This parameter is often linked to the selected resolution.

 Weaving: more and more printers, like Epson’s, offer a weaving control in order to
decrease the perception of borders between passes. It is also possible to select a
waved border rather than the usual straight border. However, the results may vary,

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and some high densities may let the waves appear. This parameter also affects the
print speed.

 Uni- or bidirectional printing: Bidirectional printing will usually be faster than

unidirectional printing, but may also affect quality:

Bidirectional alignment: you should be careful about this because a wrong alignment
will let the offset between left-to-right and right-to-left firing appear. This also
depends on the media thickness and head height. A wrong alignment will increase the
grain:

Good alignment

Wrong alignment

Ink drying: since print speed is increased in bidirectional printing, drying time
between passes will be lower. Therefore you will usually be able to put less ink than
with unidirectional printing. This is more visible with eco-solvent printers. Some
other artifacts may appear, like the infamous “football field”, consisting in alternate
darker and lighter bands because of insufficient drying between passes.

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 Head height: According to media thickness or undulation, you will have to adjust the
head height in order to avoid scratches during the print. However, the more distance
between the media and the head there is, the more droplets deflection you will get,
therefore increasing the grain.

Lowest position

Middle position

Highest position

 Media thickness: Some printers provide a compensation for media thickness in

addition to the head height. Because of this parameter, it is worth helping the
correction of firing position, especially for bidirectional printing.

 Heaters: On solvent printers, an important task will be adjusting the heaters. Such a
printer is usually equipped with 2 to 4 heaters, which can be independently adjusted.
Usually, if the media heating is insufficient, ink acceptance will be lower. On the
other hand, when there is too much heat, the media may be undulating and may be
scratched by the head. Also, for some textiles, too much heat may prevent the ink
from penetrating well enough before the evaporation of most of the solvent. There are
two approaches here:

 Convex: the heater placed immediately after the head is set higher than the others,
opening the pores of the media wider in order to allow ink penetration.

 Concave: the same heater is set lower than the one just before the head in order to
make a thermal shock which will open the pore.

Some very thick media will need the highest possible value. On the other hand,
papers do not usually accept much heat. Usually the heat needs are linked to media
thickness and nature because the heat needs to pass through the media.

The media must have a good contact with the printer’s platten in order to get good
thermal transmission (no waves).

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Also manufacturers often give good start values, which are usually configured by
default in Caldera Software.

 Feed adjustment: Because of winder tensions, media weight and media adhesion,
the media advance between passes may be inexact. So this can lead to some banding
effects:

 Positive banding: white lines appear between passes because the advance is too
important. The feed adjustment must be decreased.

 Negative banding: on the opposite, when the advance is too small, pass
overlapping will occur. In this case, you need to increase the feed adjustment.

 Delay between passes: Some printers provide such a parameter in order to improve
ink drying. Because some high ink densities needs medias that have a very low ink
acceptance, this option may save the day. However, be careful, because this
parameter lowers the print speed.

 Head scan amplitude: In order to improve speed on narrow prints, some printers
allow a selection of the head scan width: job, media, or full width of the printer.
However, the ink acceptance may be reduced if the head only scans the width of the
job, because the drying time between passes is reduced.

 If you use a small width roll every time, select the media width rather than the
printer's width to increase speed.

 With wider rolls, it is recommended to scan media-width or printer-width, even

for narrow jobs, to avoid drying issues.

 EasyMedia also provides the Horizontal tiling option, whose effect is to repeat the
print along the media width if the printer does not provide options to force a full
width scan.

 Winder: Some printers are equipped with a winder able to operate with tension. Even
if this is usually not necessary for steep media, it might be useful for flexible media or
media that tend to stick to the printer's platten.

Some printers like Mutoh’s Spitfire provide a pre-print tensor. Make sure that it is
activated.

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 Dot distribution: With variable dot printers, dot gain ratio and dot distribution are
usually measured and optimized during the driver's development at Caldera's, because
EasyMedia does not provide the corresponding measure tools for the moment.
However some drivers allow the user to change the dot ratio in order to optimize
graininess in light tones, but forcing too much small and medium dots may lead to a
lack of density for some intermediate values, which will be visible in gradients. So
usage of this function is a balance between graininess and density.

Normal curve Lack of density

Also, a wrong dot distribution may result in having micro-banding by lack of ink
coverage.

Ink transitions

 Analysing the dark inks target allows to correct some print parameters:

 A doubling of vertical lines and a visible grain result from a wrong bidirectional
alignment.

 A doubling of horizontal lines is the consequence of a bad feed adjustment. On

printers like the Mutoh Spitfire, it may also result from a deactivated pre-print
tensor.

 Pass overlapping or white lines between passes indicate a wrong feed adjustment.

 A fuzzy placement of droplets indicates a too high head position. Also if it varies
slightly by waves along the media width, it indicates that the media undulates too
much because it is too hot or the vacuum is not too weak.

 EasyMedia proposes the light inks target first. However, these adjustments must be
carried printing the dark inks target, even more if this one includes composite patches.

 Comparing light and dark inks curves:

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Light inks over darks Dark inks over lights

Both curve screens allow you to define limits of evaluation range for each target.
Values found by EasyMedia do not usually need any adjustment. However, when
some saturation remains undetected you will have to interfere.

 If the limits are after the first saturation point, put them just before it.

 If light inks curves have higher densities than dark inks curves, please check that
you have measured both targets in the right order, first light, then dark.

 If light and dark curves overlap, it means they are the same, so we advise you to
make sure:

 that you have actually printed a light inks and a dark inks target, and not twice
the same target.

 that you have actually measured the right target for each.

 You may eliminate some high densities measure errors by lowering the limit,
even if there is no saturation.

 Dark/light ratio curves:

 Curves are relatively straight.

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 A measure error will appear as a peak in these curves and may alter the dark/light
ratio evaluation. If this peak is at one end, we advise restraining the evaluation
range. Unfortunately in the case below, we won’t be able to put it away without
losing most of the measure, so we will ignore this error.

 Multiple peaks usually result from a wrong choice of measured targets.

Transition curves

We will notice that even if the curves are automatically adjusted in function of previous
evaluation, you will often have to fine-tune them again to compensate some problems that
cannot be measured.

 The maximal obtained density for light inks should not exceed the Pmax value given
for the measured corresponding curve, in order to avoid saturation issues.

 The same way, the Pmax value given for dark inks measure indicates a first-shot
evaluation of where to stop light inks.

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 Generally, the light inks stop will be defined in function of maximal density for each
ink. So it is possible to come back and fine-tune transition curves according to
linearization limits, then redo the linearization process with the corrected transitions.

 Too much light ink can cause too low an ink limit in linearization or total ink
evaluation, so you will have to lower the quantities of light inks.

 If lowering the curve does not help, you can also force a stronger replacement of light
inks for high densities when selecting Numbers.

 When you lower the quantity of light inks for light tones, the graininess will increase.
So you will have to find a balance between saturation risk and graininess.

 Using light inks to render high densities increases the global ink consumption, so the
cost of the print.

 When using too much light ink rather than dark inks for high densities, this may lead
to a lack of density, which will be visible in gradients.

 Using light inks for high densities will usually lower the total ink limit.

 Too much light ink can cause saturations for middle tones that tend to disappear for
higher densities because there is too much liquid.

Total ink limiting

 The limit given at the linearization time for each ink will be applied when printing
the ink limit targets.

 If you force a value in the Ink Clipping, Each Ink field, the minimum of this value
and the value from the linearization will be taken.

 If you already have an estimation of the ink limit, we advise entering this value as
well as a slight margin in the Ink Clipping, Global field. So the mix of inks will
be nearer the final values. Because of the dark/light transitions, starting with a too

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high value will result in a different mix, which usually gives an improper
apparently lower limit.

 Above 200 %, if you think there is no visual difference between values after a
given value <v> (every patch from the column is black and looks like the one on
the next column), even if there is no saturation, it is worthless to set a higher limit
than <v>. Actually it would only increase the ink consumption.

 It is the right moment to find out the optimal values for the passes number (if not
linked to the profiling configuration) and heaters by successive prints. In case of
saturation, trying to raise up the heaters is a good start.

 Diffuse, dripping and wet patches are actually too inked.

 Negative banding in high densities only results from too much ink.

 A matte effect on a glossy paper results from either the use of the wrong black
(matte black on Epson or Canon printers), or ink saturation.

 If the borders of patches tend to be over-inked, this is a result of ink fleeing to the
edges. It is a typical case of saturation on solvent printers.

 A strange grain having no link to the screening is the consequence of ink packing
together.

 A whole wet horizontal band may be the consequence of one of these problems:

 The dominant ink does not blend well with the others. You will have to limit
the use of this ink.

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 There is too much light ink in the mix. In this case, you will have to fine-tune
the dark/light transitions and redo the linearization, then print a new ink limit
target.

 A horizontal band which seems saturated in lowest shown densities, then good
and then saturated again shows a too high proportion of light ink. So you will
have to fine-tune the ink transitions, redo the linearization and print a new ink
limit target.

 A profile with light inks will generally have a lower ink limit than without the
light inks, but if the difference is too important, you should restrict the use of light
inks, especially for high densities. A quick test on the dark inks-only profile will
provide a good indication. Here is how to do it quickly:

 Create the matching project in CMYK, using exactly the same parameters as
for the rest.

 When you perform the linearization, choose Load an existing measure file at
target's choice, rather than Print & Measure target.

 Choose Load a file in project's directory, then Browse, then get the
corresponding .dark.lect file in the CMYKcm/resolution/ subdirectory in
media's project.

 Use this file as last measurement file?  Yes.

 Input some relevant ink limits.

 Continue up to the print and analysis of the ink limit target.

 Be careful about respecting the rules about individual ink limits against total ink
limit (the sum of the two maxima should not exceed the total ink limit).

 Scratch resistance must be tested the day after, when all the solvent has
evaporated.

 Marks looking like dust or impacts may be the result of ink packing together.

 The infamous “football field” effect generally comes from the bidirectional
printing. Switching to unidirectional printing will usually solve the problem.
However, if it is not possible, you can also try to add a delay between passes (if
this option available).

 Look at the back of thin papers to see if the ink has not passed through the media.

 If you have a total limit which is too low compared to individual ink limits, you
should lower the individual values to match this rule: the sum of the two individual
highest values should not exceed total ink limit. You can estimate it by using Ink
Clipping, then Each ink; you will usually see some improvements.

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However, there are cases in which total acceptance also decreases when you
lower the limits for each ink. This is an ink mixing problem resulting from:

 Either too much light ink. In this case, you will have to start again from ink
separation.

 Or a lack of mixing capabilities for the inks on this media. In that case, you
have no other choice than to lower the limits again.

 On water-based ink printers, you may have to cap the limit at a value that avoids
media undulations resulting from too much liquid.

 On solvent printers, an undulating media won’t be homogeneously in contact with

the plattens, leading to different heat transmissions, and so different ink drying
capabilities.

 For applications that are viewed from some distance, you can accept some small
artefacts resulting from ink saturation in order to gain density, especially for
media that tend to have a low ink acceptance.

Editing a project

Besides running a calibration from scratch, like we did in the tutorial, there are many
circumstances in which you may want to edit an existing project—to inspect the
linearization curves, for example, or to rebuild the ICC profile because you suspect that
the media or the inks have changed. Also, you will not usually run all the calibration steps
in one pass, like in our tutorial. Instead, you may want to switch to another project while
waiting for a target to dry, or need to turn your computer off in the middle of the process,
etc.

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Opening a project in Edition mode is very easy: select the printer, then the media, then the
project you want to edit, and click the Next button.

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This will open the Status window of the Project Manager. From there, you can select
whatever step you want to edit or visualize. For example, if you want to check the ICC
profile statistics (described in the Profiling chapter), click Profiling, select Edit/Check
current profile, and click Next.

You can also edit the settings for the other steps (Transition, Linearization, Ink Limit), or
run the associated calibration process at any time, whether your project is completed or in
progress. But be careful, for EasyMedia will not invalidate the subsequent steps, even
though logically it should. For example, if you modify the linearization curves,
EasyMedia will not remove or invalidate the ICC profile. So, be careful while editing the
calibration settings.

Media patches

When you have built a complete calibration for a Media, there are many situations in
which you would want to make this calibration available to someone else. A solution in
this case would be to send this “someone else” the 3 calibration files, the name of the
Media, perhaps its parameters as well. The other person would then create the media,

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input the parameters, and finally import the calibration files, one by one, in the Project
Manager.

This is however a long and tedious task, during which many errors may occur. Thus, in
EasyMedia, you can create a Media Patch. It is a file that contains all the data for a given
project (or more), and that can be easily installed by anyone else.

Creating a media patch

First, select the printer, then the media(s) you want to include in the patch19.

Please note that all the projects made for the selected media(s) will be included in the
patch. If there is more than one project for your media, you cannot choose which one to
put in the patch. However, the person who will install the patch will also have the
possibility to select which media or which project to install, so this should not be a
problem.

19
Use the Shift button to select more than one media

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Next, click the Build Patch button. EasyMedia will open a browser to select the file name
and the location (by default, this will be your home directory). When you click on OK,
the patch will be created.

Installing a media patch

There are two ways to install a Media Patch: one with EasyMedia, and one without.

Without EasyMedia

Save the patch to your desktop, or somewhere on your local disk, then double-click the file.
This will open the Caldera Installer/Updater, which you have probably already seen when
installing/upgrading your Caldera software or installing another patch. Within this installer,
you need to click the Next button a few times, then the Update button. Once this is done, you
do not need to perform any other operation.

There are two disadvantages in doing it that way. First, the installer will stop any running
Caldera software; second, you cannot select the profiles you want to install (nor view
which ones have been installed).

With EasyMedia

First, select the printer for which you want to install the patch. Then, in the Media
window, click Install Patch, and select the file in the browser that pops up. A new
window will open, showing the list of profiles contained in the patch.

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Here, you can either select the profile(s) you want to install and click Install selection, or
install all of them with the Install all button.

If the list is empty, it means that the Media Patch does not contain anything for your
printer. You can select the Display all profiles included in the patch option to check what
it contains. You can also select some profiles and install them, if you are sure they are
compatible with your printer, but please be careful when using this method.

Importing calibration files

Sometimes, you will need to import a Transition file, a Linearization file, or even an ICC
profile, instead of running the Wizard to build it—for instance, when a media is very
close to another one already calibrated (you could take the same Transitions and the same
Linearization, and just rebuild the ICC profile), or after using an external software to
build the ICC profile. The procedure goes as follows (as an example, we will import a
Linearization file):

1 – Select the Linearization step, check the Create new linearization curves radio button,
and Load/Import an existing file, at the bottom of the window.

2 – In the next window, two options are available: you can either select, in the list, a
linearization file already made for this printer, or click the Browse button to select another
file, which can be located anywhere on your disk.

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3 – Click Next to import the file. The linearization editor will be displayed, exactly as if
you had run the wizard. You can now modify the curves, print a test target, etc.

It is extremely important to realize that, once you have loaded/imported a file, it is not
connected to the original file anymore: if you modify either of them, the modifications
will not be reflected on the other one. Also, EasyMedia will not keep the original file
name: it will rename the file according to its usual conventions.

Notes:

 When importing a linearization file, the (global) ink limit is also imported (it is
stored in the same file).

 In the case of the transition and linearization processes, EasyMedia can currently
only import its own file format (its extensions are .ppi for transition, and .ppc for
linearization). There is no standard format.

 In the case of the ICC profile, EasyMedia can import any ICC-compliant file (the
extension may be .icc or .icm). However, it does not mean that you can import an
ICC-profile generated for another RIP, even if the printer/media/resolution is the
same. The file format is a standard one, but the print process used to generate the
target is not.

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 Some ICC builder profiles may use so-called “private“ tags in their profiles,
making it impossible for the Caldera RIP to properly interpret the data. If you
have use an external builder and think that the print quality should be better,
please contact the Caldera support.

Importing measure files

In certain situations, you will want to load a measure file, instead of measuring a target.
Two cases are quite common here :

 You already have measured the target yourself, but for some reason had to
interrupt the calibration.

 Your measuring device is not supported, and you had to use another software to
measure the target.

In either case, you will need to activate the wizard, then select the Load an existing
measure file option at the bottom of the window (again, we will take the example of the
Linearization here).

Please note that the target you will select is not important here, because EasyMedia will
switch automatically to the correct target once the measure file is loaded.

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In the next window, you will have to indicate the location of your measure file:

There are 3 possibilities :

 Select Load last measure file if you want to load the last measure you have taken
for this project and for this step (for example, if you are resuming a calibration
that you had to interrupt). If this field is greyed out, it means that no measure was
taken.

 Select Load a file in project's directory if you want to load another measure taken
for the same project (typically, an archived measure file).

 Select Load another file to select a measure file located anywhere on the disk.

If you select one of the last two options, you will need to click the Browse... button, then
select the file. Please note that the browser will by default only show you the files that are
marked with a .lect extension (this is the extension EasyMedia uses for all its measure
files). If yours has a different extension (i.e. “.txt”), you will need to modify the filter.

Once you've made your selection, click the Next button; EasyMedia will then try to load
the file. If it detects that the file does not match the target, it will suggest you the

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appropriate target, and ask you whether it should use it or not. Moreover, if you have
loaded anything else than the last measure file, it will also ask you if you want to use this
file as last measure file the next time you enter this window, in order to not waste any
time.

If everything goes right, you will go on with the same stage as if you had measured a
target. Otherwise, EasyMedia will tell you that it cannot load the file. In this case, please
contact Caldera support.

The measuring devices

This section lists all the measuring devices supported by EasyMedia, how to configure
and plug them, and what their particularities are. However, it does not detail the operating
instructions for all of them, since EasyMedia already offers a specialized online help for
all devices.

Barbieri Spectro LFP

The Barbieri Spectro LFP is a table spectro-photometer, accepting either serial or USB
connection. There is no speed difference, no matter what connection type is used. If you
experiment problems with the USB connection, try using a shorter USB cable, or switch
to serial.

The device allows to read either in reflection or in transmission mode. For the latter, you
will need a special holder shipped with the device. Moreover, the transparent targets
include a reference rectangle (on the top left) that you absolutely have to cut before the
measure.

Positioning is completely automatic; thus once you have placed the target on the table,
you normally have nothing else to do. The automatic positioning uses special black bands
printed on the left and top sides of the target. It may occasionally fail, usually because the
ink density is too low (e.g. when printing a light ink target with light black). In that case,
you will need to switch to manual positioning. Note that the device has no embedded
keyboard, so you have to use the computer's keyboard to locate the marks.

The scanning mode proceeds either by strip reading, contactless strip reading in order to
avoid scratching the media, or patch-by-patch with an up-down movement of the head
between the patches (this mode is very slow and very rarely needed). In addition, models
with a recent firmware version allow multiple measures for the same patch in order to
increase precision.

A button placed on the head lets you switch the head aperture, from 2mm to 6 mm. The
latter one needs bigger patches, hence uses a 2-page target (you will be prompted to insert
the second one when needed). It is strongly recommended for printers that have big drop
sizes, or for textured media. In every case, do not forget to check the aperture position on
the device, because EasyMedia will not detect a mismatch (scanning a 2mm target with
the 6mm aperture, or vice-versa).

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Barbieri SpectroSwing
The SpectroSwing share many features with the Spectro LFP, the main difference being
that the SpectroSwing can only handle flexible materials. Also, it only has an USB
connection.

Caldera TotalColor
The Caldera TotalColor is an OEM version of the Barbieri Spectro LFP. Both devices are
absolutely identical.

Caldera Swing
The Caldera Swing is an OEM version of the Barbieri SpectroSwing.

Xrite / GretagMacbeth EyeOne

The EyeOne is a USB device, and can only be connected to a USB port. On a Mac OS X
system, it has to be connected directly to one of the main ports of the computer; it will not
work if you plug it to the keyboard, or to the monitor (or, more exactly, it will not always
work).

The EyeOne is a spectrophotometer, but you can also use it as a densitometer. However,
you cannot select what densitometer standard to use: Status A is forced.

Xrite / GretagMacbeth EyeOne IO

The IO is a table equipped with a rotating 2-piece arm used combined with a mounted
EyeOne. It allows the automatic measure with the same features as the EyeOne alone, either
in band reading, or patch-by-patch.

Xrite DTP-41
The DTP-41 is an automatic strip-reading spectrophotometer. It supports serial
connection only, so if you are on a Macintosh, you will need an adapter to connect it to an
USB port (please see the FAQ for more details about that).

The DTP-41 is limited regarding the type of target it can read: the size of patches, and the
offset between them, must match certain criteria. All the targets compatible with the
DTP-41 are prefixed with their name (e.g. “DTP-41 CMYK target”).

The DTP-41 can be used as a densitometer, but you cannot select which standard to use:
Status T is forced.

GretagMacbeth Spectroscan
The spectroscan is a table spectrophotometer that only has a serial connection. If you
work on a Macintosh station, you will need an adapter to connect it to an USB port (for
more details, please see the last FAQ). On a Linux box, you can connect it to either of the
two available serial ports.

You can scan any target with a spectroscan—the only limit is the table size. If your target
is too big in its normal orientation, but fits the table size once rotated, you can measure it

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that way. However, do not forget that you will also have to rotate the top-left, bottom-left
and bottom-right patches during the initialization procedure.

GretagMacbeth SpectroLino
The SpectroLino is a single-patch device. Apart from that, it has the same connectivity and
the same capabilities than the spectroscan (in fact, it is the head of the spectroscan).

Xrite DTP-32
The Xrite DTP-32 is an automatic strip-reading densitometer. Like the DTP-41, it has a
serial connection only.

The same limitations as for the DTP-41 apply for the choice of targets.

The Xrite DTP-32 can only read in Status T.

Xrite DTP-34
The Xrite DTP-34 is a manual strip-reader densitometer with a serial connection, like the
other Xrite devices. It can measure the same targets as the EyeOne, though only in
density mode, of course.

The Xrite DTP-34 can only read in Status T.

FAQ (FrequentlyAsked Questions)

Question: How do I print a “free” target to set up my media parameters (e.g.
temperature)?

Answer: In CMYK mode, select the Linearization step, use the Create from scratch
option to set up some fake linearization curves (straight lines), and print a Test Target. In
CMYKcm, select the Transition step, select Create from scratch, set up the transition
controls to use light link or not (it depends on what you want to do), and print a Test
Target.

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Question: Can I change the temperature after the media calibration is finished?

Answer: EasyMedia will not prevent you from doing that, if this is what you are afraid of.
If your question is: “do I have to recalibrate?”, it is up to you. If the modifications help to
improve the print quality without changing the colors too much, then it is not mandatory.
However, you may want to raise the ink limit, now that the print quality has gotten better.
If you do that, we advise you to rebuild the profile.

Question: How do I design a new target?

Answer: It is difficult. We recommend you send your target to the Caldera support team
(especially if the target is an ICC one). However, if you know the Caldera RIP well, and
can use a plain text editor, you may have a look in /opt/caldera/lib/Easy, the directory
where all the targets are stored. You need to create a text file named .easy, containing all
the information about the target. The file itself must be in TIFF format.

Question: What can I do if my measuring device is not supported?

Answer: First, print the target with EasyMedia, then measure it with another software,
save the measure file, and import it into EasyMedia (to do that, use the option labelled
Load an existing measure file in the Target Selection window). If it does not work, send
the measure file to the Caldera support team.

Question: Do I have to make custom Transition controls for every project?

Answer: Probably not. Building the transition curves is quite a long process, since there
are two targets to print and measure, and three different steps in the wizard. It may not be
worth the trouble to do everything for each media. Therefore, if you have already
calibrated a similar media, at the same resolution, you can try using its Transition curves
(Load/Import option). However, never use a transition setup made for another resolution
(this is because the values to setup—beginning of the introduction of dark ink, etc.—are
expressed in printer ink densities, and thus can change a lot with the resolution). Please be
also especially attentive to the “plateau” effect when you perform the linearization, if you
have not build any custom transitions for your media.

Question: What is the “Transition” step, anyway? It does not exist in RIP XXX.

Answer: Every RIP has its own workflow for media calibration. The Linearization and
Profiling processes are now quite mature and well-understood by everybody, so all RIPs
do more or less the same. For ink transitions, the situation is different, since there is no
standard, and every RIP performs this process differently. Certain developers have chosen
to not give any access at all to the transition controls. Their RIP software contains a
predefined amount of generic settings for every printer and every resolution, and you
have no other choice than to use these settings.

As long as it works, things will be alright, but if it does not, you cannot help it (also, you
cannot control the quantity of light ink you want to use). In other RIPs, you can modify
the transition controls (these are more or less the same controls as in the Caldera
software), but they are hidden, and need to be set through trial-and-error, since no

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measurement is involved. You may feel that you have more targets to measure in the
Caldera RIP, but be aware of one thing: if you modify any transition control in any RIP,
you must print and measure the linearization target again, because the modification
changes the densities in the mid-tones, at the least. Since you will usually detect that you
need to modify the controls only after you print and measure at least one linearization
target, it already becomes an additional measure to take.

Question: Can I use as “ratio” the ratio between the dark and light dmax?

Answer: No, it has nothing to do with that. For example, if the dmax of the dark cyan ink
is 1.8, and the dmax of the light cyan ink is 0.9, you cannot divide the first by the second
and take the 2.0 average as ratio. By doing that, you would assume that the density of
50% of dark cyan is 0.9, which is usually wrong, because of the non-linearity of the
printer densities.

Question: How do I re-linearize?

Answer: EasyMedia currently does not have any direct support for re-linearization.
Meanwhile, you can do the following:

1. Right after the original linearization, print a linearization target as Test Target.

2. Measure it, and put the measurement file in a safe place somewhere.

3. Later, when you want to re-linearize, use this measurement file as target curve in
the linearization step (see next FAQ).

Question: How do I use target curves when I perform a linearization in spectral mode?

Answer: Click the Target button, select the Use a reference file option, click the Browse
button, and select either a spectral linearization measurement file or an ICC profile.

The former option is useful for comparing your measurement with another one (e.g. to
check if your ink densities have changed with time, or if you have two printers of the
same model). It can also be used for re-linearization (see the previous question).

The second option, loading an ICC profile, can be used to see how your primary colors behave
compared to a standard profile (SWOP, Cromalin, etc.)—especially in the “Hue” view.

If you use a target for comparison purposes only, do not forget to disable it in the Target
dialog box before continuing.

Question: I am confused by the new Ink Limit definition. Could you create a procedure
that would allow me to set it up the other way (i.e. before linearization)?

Answer: No. In the Caldera Print System, the Ink Limit is not only defined in the printer
ink space, but is also applied in it. It is thus impossible to compute an equivalent of a
post-linearization ink limit with a pre-linearization ink limit.

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Question: How can I play with the different dot sizes for variable drop size or multi-
drop printers?

Answer: You cannot do that. The multi-drop settings, which are a little bit like the
Transition settings, are set up at development time, and optimized for each printer and
each resolution. However, some drivers have media-specific parameters for adjusting the
maximum density of the intermediary drop sizes.

Question: Where are all the project files?

Answer: There is a folder named Easy into your home folder. In this folder, you will find
a sub-folder for each printer, then a sub-folder for each media, then a new one for each
mode, and one for each resolution as well. Each media project thus has its separate folder,
and all the measurement files are stored in it–you do not need to save them, this is done
automatically once a measure is finished. If you measure a second time in a certain step,
the previous measure is not erased, but saved in an ARCHIVES sub-folder. The
calibration files themselves (Transition file, Linearization file and ICC profile) are also
saved in this folder during the calibration process. Then, when you save your project, they
are transferred into the profile directory of Caldera (usually, it is
/opt/caldera/lib/ICC_PROFILES). The measurement data are saved in the calibration
files.

Question: What is the correct workflow to build both a CMYK and a CMYKcm
calibration?

Answer: Create two projects, one in CMYKcm and one in CMYK, and begin with the
CMYKcm project. Build the transition curves, then switch to the CMYK project; there,
load the measurement file of the “Dark Ink Target” done for the CMYKcm project (click
the Load a file in Project's directory, go into the CMYKcm folder, and select the file with
the .dark.lect extension). For the three steps that are common to both steps (Linearization,
Ink Limit and Profiling), process the two projects in parallel, first CMYK, then
CMYKcm. The CMYK mode is less complex, especially when it comes to the Ink Limit,
so it should help you for the CMYKcm one.

Question: Can I add a second EasyMedia in my application bar, and run the 2
instances simultaneously?

Answer: Yes, but this is of little interest, since you can easily switch from one project to
another in EasyMedia. There is only one case in which it might be useful: when you want
to continue working in the main instance of EasyMedia while reading a target in the other
one. You can do that, but be very careful: you must use the second EasyMedia only for
reading (no media creation, no upload, no print, etc.), otherwise you may loose data. To
import the measurement files into the main EasyMedia window, use the Load a file in
Project's directory option (that's where the second instance of EasyMedia will save the
measures).

Question: I have twice the same printer, and one server configured for each of them.
How can I build a calibration for both?

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Answer: You cannot do that. You have to make the calibration using one of them, then
build a Media Patch, and install this patch for the other server.

Question: How do I connect my serial measuring device into a MacOS X system?

Answer: You need an USB adapter (available from Keyspan, for example), as well as the
driver that comes with it. EasyMedia itself does not require a specific configuration.

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EasyMedia – Monitors

T he screen profile allows to view colors on the monitor in the most exact way
possible. Such a profile is necessarily associated to the monitor on which it has
been measured, and cannot be used on another one.

Choosing the project

In this window, the list of available projects is displayed, containing their names (Monitor
designation) as well as the names of the profiles associated to them. If the profile defined
as the default one is in this list, the “(default)“ flag will then be placed near its name.

To check or modify a project linked to a monitor, you first need to select it. Then click Next.

To create a new project, click New. In the Monitor designation window that appears, type
the name of the project.

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Edit allows you to modify the designation of the project. Be aware that this does not
modify the profile's name, if it already exists.

To define a profile as the default one, select it and click on Make as default. For the
process to go well, please make sure that the CopyShop/CopyRIP application is not
running. If it is, you will be able to close it from within EasyMedia. Restart the Caldera
software for the new state of the project to be taken into account.

Selecting the operation

In this window, you can define the name of the profile that will be created in the end. The
name suggested by default is the same as the project's, with the .icc extension.

The operations among which you can choose are the following ones:

 Create a new ICC profile: This creates a new ICC profile.

 Edit/Check current profile: If the profile already exists (i.e. has been calculated
before), this option allows you to view it. For more details about this, please refer
to the Viewing the profile part of this chapter.

 Import a profile allows you to import an ICC profile that has not been created
using EasyMedia. Click on the Browse button to select the profile to import

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among your existing files; once this is done, go to the Viewing the profile part to
know how to go on with the procedure.

Click Next to go on.

Choosing the procedure

If you have chosen to create a new profile in the previous step, you must now define what
procedure to use. You will have to choose between the two that follow:

 Run Wizard allows you to choose a reference target and a measure peripheral
(colorimeter), and to directly perform a measurement on the screen. In the case of
a new project, this option is the only one available.

 Use project's last target and measurement data is only available in the case of a
project whose data measurement has already been done. You then have to go to
the Profile size step to go on with the process.

Click on Next to go on.

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Selecting the type of monitor

If you have selected the Run Wizard option in the previous step, you must choose here
the type of monitor to calibrate.

Choose LCD if your monitor is a flat one, or CRT if it is a cathodic one.

Then click on Next to go on.

Selecting the reference target

The reference target defines the amount of colors that will be measured with the
colorimeter. Currently, the suggested targets contain 45 colors (the default for CRT
monitors) or 100 colors (the default for LCD monitors).

You can also import a different target; it will be a LGO file. To do so, choose the Import
target option, and click Browse to go to the file selector and pick the appropriate file.

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Click Next to go on.

Choosing the colorimeter

In this window, click on Use measuring device to use a measurement peripheral (colorimeter). To
choose it, click the black arrow, and select it in the list of available peripherals.

You can also import a measure file (Import measurement data), in LGO format. It must
correspond to the reference selected in the previous step. In this case, select the Profile
size part to know the next step.

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Click Next to go on.

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Calibrating the colorimeter

If you have chosen a colorimeter in the previous step, it will be calibrated now.

The calibration process can vary from one peripheral to the other; this is why you will
have to follow the instructions given on the screen, as they are different for many types of
colorimeters.

Most peripherals either have a calibration support (a white patch) or need to be placed on
a plane surface neither emitting nor reflecting light (a table, for instance).

Click Next to go on.

Measurements
In this step, various colors will be displayed on the monitor, as well as calibrated by the
peripheral placed on it. Please refer to the instructions given on the screen to place the

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colorimeter the correct way. Once again, these may differ depending on the peripheral
that you use.

It is recommended to use the centre of the screen to take the measure, and to clean and
dry the place where the probe will be applied. In the same fashion, for you to obtain an
optimal result, the monitor should have been on for at least 30 minutes before the
measurement is taken.

Warning: Flat screens are way more sensitive and fragile than cathodic ones. You will
need to make sure that the fixing support of the peripheral is indeed made for this type of
monitor. For instance, you must not use a support with suction pads on a LCD screen,
since they could damage it.

Click Next to start the process. You will need to wait a little while the measurement is
taken.

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Profile size
In this step, you need to choose the size of the profile to compute. Four sizes are
available: Small, Medium, Large and Larger. For a screen profile, the Small size is
normally enough.

Click Next. Depending on the chosen size, computing the profile may take a few seconds.

Viewing the profile

Thanks to a preview displayed in the window, here you can see how the profile affects the
colors.

The Toggle profile button has three states. It allows you to modify the display by
choosing the one with the computed profile, the one with the default profile, or no profile
at all.

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In the right part of the window, additional information is found, such as the Name of the
profile, the Date at which it has been created, the Monitor black/white luminance, as well
as the Monitor white temperature.

Click on Next. If the profile has just been computed, you will be able to define it as the
default profile by answering Yes when the question “Do you want to set the new profile
as default?“ is asked. See also the Choosing the project step.

The calibration of the monitor is now done. Click Next to finalize the procedure.

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