Color Precision with Calcomp Scanners

Calibration

Calibration is the process of setting the scanner device so that it performs in accordance with an established standard. Its like tuning your piano; making sure it will output tunes in accordance with the whole orchestra.

A new wide format scanner may come calibrated from the factory, but as time goes by, components and lamps will change character and affect color output. With a Calcomp scanner, your investment is fully protected and your scanner never suffers degradation, as is the case with other scanner devices with complicated or missing calibration support.

Calcomp color scanners are the market's only wide format scanners that can be user-calibrated to output color in accordance with international color standards. The unique Precision Color system lets you calibrate in the field at any time ensuring stabile and predictable color output. Calcomp scanners are calibrated to both sRGB and NTSC color spaces using an ANSI IT8 calibration target.

High quality color results in printed copies can only be obtained if the capture device (scanner) and output device (printer) "see" colors in the same way on a given media. You can spend a lot of money for raster-image processor whose job is to ensure color matching and quality from scanner to printer to media. Calcomp gives you the solution for free in our JETimage BASE software that is included with every color scanner. JETimage employs a procedure called "Closed Loop Calibration" that uses the scanner to gather color information and ensure optimal color consistency between the scanned original and the printed copy. The process involves analyzing the correspondence between printed and scanned values on a set of reference color patches printed on the actual output media.

Results are stored in units called "Media Profiles" and each refers to a type of output media that you use. A number of standard color Media Profiles, fit to popular printers and printing media are predefined, tested and installed with the JETimage application. But you can also create your own Media Profiles and thus add required media types to the list. Guided by the application, you print the color patches on your printer and then scan the printed output, automatically generating a Media Profile with color consistency parameters for the media with the printer. From then on you just select the profile you need for copying.

Wide format color scanning requires high precision capture and full control over color tones. With our color scanners you can set black-and-white points and determine RGB tone transfer curves (gamma) to be downloaded to the scanner. Other color controls include lightness, saturation, RGB color balance and color blur filters.

Our color scanners also support Color Management Systems (CMS) by the international standard ICC profile (Kodak, Agfa, HP, Microsoft, Adobe, etc.)

Calcomp Wide Format Color Scanners incorporate all-digital cameras with advanced point-of-origin color capture, ensuring low noise and extended dynamic range. Color is captured at 36 bits for maximum color precision, passing the best 24 bit of color data to the computer to enhance color fidelity.

Correct colors depend on good lighting. Calcomp scanners use special color matched fluorescent lamps - Color Rendering Index (CRI) > 95 for optimal color fidelity.