I would like to get back to the original question that started this thread. What CM workflows are currently being used in Linux? What tools are used and where? How are they integrated to bring automation to the workflow?
It seems when I asked this question initially most of the replies basicly danced around the question or said it's not possible. So I looked at what I had available to me and how I might use these to implement a CM workflow. There is some speculation and assumptions in what I came up with and I have not worked with this enough to know if it will work in actual practice. I have ignored the question of how to get quality custom profiles as I am certain that I can generate all of these except the display profile with the tools I have on hand. In addition, if you can afford it, I can't, the high end Barco monitor does support Linux according to their web site. So one of my assumptions is that good device profiles are in place or can be created. Below are my thoughts on how I might go about a CM workflow. I have used VueScan Professional on Windows with my Canon LIDe 20 primarily for my printer profiling process. This process requires raw scans and a scanner with a light source that has low metamerism characteristics. The Canon LIDe 20 and 30 have nearly perfect light sources for this and are dirt cheap. But the stock Canon driver sucks in general and does not support a raw mode scan. So I purchased VueScan Professional, as recommenced by the vendor of my Windows profiling software, to get the capability to do raw scans. VueScan cost more than the scanner but is was worth it as I now get very good printer profiles with limited effort. VueScan Professional has full color management features and it occurred to me that this might be useful for implementing a CM workflow in Linux. I installed the Linux version today and used my serial number to get it into professional mode. In the color dialog it allows the user to setup ICC profiles for the input, the output (working) color space, the printer and the monitor color space. So it appears that VueScan will handle several of the transformations needed to get a working CM workflow. I did a scan with the output profile being Adobe RGB. In The GIMP I setup the display color proof filter as Adobe RGB and when activated the image did not change as would be expected since there was no transformation. When I selected one of my Windows generated printer profiles the image changed the way I would have expected. So it appears that The GIMP is using the working color space embeded into the image file to handle the transformation to the proof space. (Does anyone know if this is correct? This is one of my assumptions.) So it should be possible, if the user has a good display profile, to use that as the color proof profile in The GIMP and The GIMP will handle color management correctly to the display device during editing. Of course you will not be able to do a soft proof. The other short coming is that The GIMP turns this setting off every time you close the image. So this must be setup again each time you open an image. Another possible way to handle this would be to transform the file to the display color space then in The GIMP soft proofing would work. But I am concerned that working in the display space may cause problems because of the limited gamut or perhaps something else that I don't know about. Then when it is time to print use VueScan with task set to "Copy to printer" and select "file" as the source. VueScan will handle the transformation from the working space (I think, another assumption, you may have to set the input profile to your working space profile) into the printer color space before sending the file to the printer. Or set task to "scan to file", source to "file" and set the output profile to your printer profile. Then pull the output file that was tranformed to the printer color space by VueScan into The GIMP where you have more control over how it will print. In my initial experiment with using VueScan for printing I used one of my Windows printer profiles and it appeared that it was applied. So this looks like it will work. So I think it is possible to do CM on Linux. The only potential show stopper is the need for a $5,000 monitor to get Linux CM support for the display. Has anyone else used VueScan Professional as part of their CM workflow on Linux? What does YOUR workflow look like? -- Hal V. Engel
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