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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: pantone color
From:       Thomas Diehl <thd () kde ! org>
Date:       2002-05-02 7:44:06
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Am Dienstag, 30. April 2002 23:29 schrieb Patrick Julien:

> I'm not sure what the requirements for "full process color functional"
> would be...
>
> Does this mean different color models like CMYK and support for it's
> various channels?

Process colors means mostly CMYK support, ie 4 color channels. (This is 
really not just a "Pantone" thing, BTW. The subject is misleading.)

> In any case, I'm not sure for printed media you'll ever be able to
> replace Photoshop with Krita, no matter how good/bad Krita gets...

Well, like I said there is still Corel PhotoPaint to bail us out. But, of 
course, it would be nice to have a real free solution.

>  I
> think this kind of testing would set me back quite a bit in terms of
> paper and ink :)

Actually, CMYK is usually not printed in color but in grayscale on the user 
level (since everything is just about "dot patterns", not actual colors 
here). The colors are coming in much later, during the offset printing 
process (ie in a real printery). 

The purpose of CMYK is the ability to easily get colors separated in a way 
that is usable for professional (offset) printing. The conversion to the 
CMYK color model (from RGB or palette colors) and the following separation 
process makes it possible to bring the zillions of colors in a given 
picture down to just Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black raster screens at 
different angles. (These "raster screens" are the way how the printing dots 
are distributed over the page. The separated C, M, Y, and K dots have to be 
printed in certain patterns next to each other. And the different angles 
help to avoid printing those dots just on top of each other.)

Therefore, at production stage, there is no need for color. Everything is 
about dots, their distribution, line screens and angles. It only becomes a 
color picture afterwards, when everything is being run through an (offset) 
printing machine and the complete picture gets restored from the formerly 
separated CMYK elements (ie from the 4 different dot patterns that were 
created during color separation).

I'd recommend having a look at a description of the (offset) printing 
process to get an idea of what this is about and what would be necessary 
from the application side. It might also help to have a look at what eg 
PhotoPaint is doing (although the code is unfortunately not accessible).

Regards,

Thomas


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