Colour Management in CorelDraw

You know for a lot of us going from the world of black and white to the world of colour takes a lot of practice and also a whole new way of thinking. One of those ways of thinking involves the technique of colour management. So what is colour management – well let me use what one author wrote on the Nikon site:

“The concept of colour management is to implement a method of working that attempts to standardize the representation of a digital images. The aim is to ensure that the appearance of any image (colour, brightness etc) remain consistent as it is moved, viewed and printed on any computer.”

To further make colour management effective:
“The ICC (International Color Consortium) has established a standard for the definition of a colour management system for image processing and reproduction. This page is intended as a concise explanation of the basic principles involved.”
A Color management system (CMS) helps to reduce or eliminate color-matching problems and makes color portable, reliable, and predictable. Thus colour management is the technique that we use so that what we see on the screen of monitor whether it be from our scanner, computer or camera will look exactly (hopefully) as it will appear on our printer. The problem with colour management is that if you want to be exact as to colour managing as you can it usually requires that you
1. Spend a lot of time on getting your devices set up right
2. Spend a lot of money making sure that your devices are set up right
3. Spend a lot of time reading information on colour management so that you get the whole set up right.
Personally I think for a lot of people any of these 3 steps becomes more than a lot of us really want to take. But do not despair I believe that with a little bit of time and effort you can get your system to the point where it can for the most part give you an accurate representation of what the colours on your screen are actually going to print out as.
Because this course is concentrating on Corel we will use this as our model. Also I will stick to Corel 10/11 as far as the diagrams. The colour management system in Corel 10 and 11, 12, X3 and X4 is different from Corel 8 or 9 in that version 10 an 11, 12, X3 and X4 are more of a graphical setup and the setup makes it easy to set everything up. So let us get started.

The first place we need to start is by opening up the Corel management control area in Corel. To do this go to the “tools” menu and than select the “colour management” menu – see Figure 1.

Figure 1

Figure 2 shows you the dialogue box that comes up. Figure 3 is the dialogue box that comes up in earlier versions of CorelDraw. Each one is the same the interface is different

Figure 2

Figure 3

Okay we have our screen up now what do we need to do? The best way to approach this is to take each of the settings outlined in the box and look at them individually.
So before we go one let us take one more stab at defining what a profile is. The following item was found on the Pantone web site. This item does well in describing what a profile is.
“..Profiles are a way of describing a device’s overall color reproduction characteristics. Profiles are used in conjunction with color management systems (CMS) such as Apple Color Sync, Windows ICM, and others. The goal of a printer profile is to provide for a better representation of color, particularly in images, when output to the myriad of color printers available today. The CMS uses profiles as a way to translate and communicate from the screen to the printer in order to achieve a better correlation between what you see and what you get.”
So really what a program like CorelDraw is trying to do with it’s colour management setup is to provide you with the ability to accurately see colour properly whether you are taking an image from a scanner or camera and printing it to a printer. So now that we have a good working knowledge of what profiles are and why we should use them lets look at each profile and how it relates in CorelDraw.
Printer Profiles
So let us start off with looking at a printer. Click on the down arrow that is beside the printer icon. Figure 4 shows us what we will see when we click on this arrow.

Figure 4

What you see in Figure 4 is a listing of the printer profiles that are resident on my computer. I have 2 profiles available. Both of these profiles where supplied by Epson. They are the Epson 1270 and the Epson 2200. If I am printing to my Epson 1270 I would select this printer profile. If I was printing to my Epson 2200 than I would use the 2200 profile. Also available in the menu are the ability to load profiles from disk or you can download profiles from the web. So if you have a profile from your printer manufacturer or ink supplier load it. It is best to have one.

Scanner/Digital Camera Profiles

As Figure 5 shows the options in this menu are the same as those that we find in the Printer Profile section. If you are setting up a scanner than select your scanner. If it is not there than chose none.

Figure 5

Monitor Profile

Okay here is the place where if you are going to spend your time and money here is where it makes the most sense. Now before we go on I would like you to ask yourself a question – what does the accurate representation of colour on my screen mean to me. If it means nothing than you really do not need to read this article. The fact that you are reading this article means that it must mean something. So before we keep going I will insist that you consider something. If you want to get good colour than you need a good monitor and a good video card. Without both all the tinkering you do is going to mean nothing. Spend the money and update your equipment if it needs to be. That said let us move on.
Figure 6 shows that I have a number of settings to choose from. Considering I am doing this on my laptop I do not have the proper profile as one is not available for me. Thus I need to create my own. As we saw with the printer setup and the scanner setup you have the ability to pick either a monitor that is loaded in your system or one that is available on disk or via the web. If you have a good monitor you can usually get the profile from the manufacturer and just load it in via disk.

Figure 6

Although using a supplied profile is fine all monitors are different – and as they age they change and get more different. Also there are other factors such as room lighting and operating systems that can influence the way your monitor displays colours. For this reason and if you do not have access to a profile you really need to create your own profile. I have the ability on my system to generate my own monitor profile. I can use Adobe PhotoShop or I can use a third party system that comes with software and a device that “reads” my monitor. Figure 7 shows a picture of the system that I have. This system is provided by Colour Vision. The monitor “attachment” is a spyder and it reads my monitor and creates the profile for me. For Further info on the spyder see www.colorvision.com.

Figure 7

Generic Internal RGB Profile

Leave this setting as is. See Figure 8.

Figure 8

Generic Offset Separations

Leave this as it is – See Figure 9.

Figure 9

Final Set-Up

If you have profiled you monitor and you have an ICC profile than set up your colour management system as per Figure 10. Make sure that the orange arrows are active and point to the Epson Printer and to the Monitor. The others should be gray and thus inactive. To activate or inactivate you need to click on the arrow.
What is going on here? Any item that has an orange arrow means that we are reading its profile and pluging it into CorelDraw. If your scanner is not profiled than there is no reason to have an arrow on it as it has no information to provide to the system in regards to its colour profile.

Figure 10

Conclusion

Setting up CorelDraw’s Colour management is a very important technique that can provide you with proper colours so that you do not have to “guess” the next time that you create something in colour. There is one important item that needs to be done before you can have a successfully managed colour system and that is to have a properly calibrated monitor. If you do not have a monitor that is properly calibrated than anything else you do will not provide you with the proper results. Thus we are back at square one still guessing at what colours we are going to get.

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Using CorelDraw to Match a Specific Colour for Sublimation.
Help Files
http://www.engrave.ca/files/colourmatchv9.cdr
http://www.engrave.ca/files/RGB_proof.cdr
One of the biggest problems that you can encounter when you are doing sublimation is trying to match a customer’s colour. I have to say that I am one of those that had to try and match a colour once or twice. It is not fun especially when you are using sublimation ink. Why is it hard to match a colour – especially when it looks perfect on the screen?

There are usually 7 main reasons why this can happen

1. Your printer is having a bad day
2. Your ink is having issues. It is not printing properly
3. Your material is bad
4. There is something wrong with your press uneven heat
5. Your colour could be outside the colour gamut of the sublimation ink. All ink has its limitations in the colours that it can recreate – for sublimation ink this gamut is smaller than what you see on the screen of your monitor. Thus you could be trying to recreate a colour that is non reproducible on your printer.
6. Your Monitor has not been calibrated. This is probably the main reason that most people fail when it comes to accurate colour reproduction. In a nutshell all monitors do not reproduce colours the same. Thus we need to have a 3rd party calibrating device which can measure the monitor and make adjustments so that the monitor is doing a more accurate job of displaying colours. I use the spyder by colorcal.
7. You have not loaded a ICC profile Okay I have done the first two steps and they are fine. The rest of the steps are out of the question as this job has to get out. How can I give my self a better chance of getting close to my customers colour?

First create a rectangle as per Figure 1. Add in the numbers as per the figure 1 image.

Figure 1

Next Select the rectangle Note: If you have version 10 and 11 you can create the fill using the interactive fill. You can learn more about this feature in the article on the “Interactive Fill”.

Now open up the fill fly out and select the fountain fill. See Figure 2.

Figure2

You will be presented with the fountain fill dialogue box as per Figure 3.

Figure 3

Make sure that fill type is “linear” and you colour blend needs to be “two colour”.

Now select the pull down arrow in beside the colour  in “from” (red box).

Click “other” in the colour chart. Figure 4 shows you the colour selector box.

Figure 4

Make sure that your model is RGB not CMYK – forget what they told you.

I set the hues to “pentagon” and the variation to “lighter”. There are different combinations in the variation pull down menu that allows you to experiment with colour combinations.

Select the blue that you want to start with. For this case it is the darker blue (blue box on the far left).

Click Okay.

Now you are back at Figure 3. Select the “To” pull down menu. Repeat the same steps but you now can select a lighter colour which should be on a box that is to the right side in Figure 4.

Click Okay.

Select Okay to accept the linear fill.

Now print out the rectangle onto your sublimation paper.

Print it on your substrate.

Take the printed substrate and hold the printed sheet up to the monitor screen and align the numbers up that appear on the printed substrate and the monitor. Now pick a colour that you feel is the right colour on your substrate and find the number it aligns up with on the printed substrate – let us say it is the five to the end of the sheet.

Now select your eye dropper tool –see figure 5.

Figure 5

Come out and “sample” click on the area – that aligns up with the 5 we picked in our previous step – to get your colour which is displayed in the bottom right hand of your screen – see Figure 6.

Figure 6

You can now write down the numbers and when you do the fill on your image just put in those numbers.

For example delete the fill you created in the first step. Now click on the rectangle to select it.

Now click on the fill box – figure 7.

Figure 7

You will be presented with the following dialogue box. See Figure 8

Figure 8

Make sure your colour model is RGB.

Type in the numbers that you got from the bottom of the screen in CorelDraw figure 6. Type them into the red boxed area in Figure 8.

At a recent seminar I was giving I showed this technique one of the attendees added an easier way of helping the customer pick the proper colour that they wanted and to make it easier for them to convey this to you. Create the fill and numbers the way we did in figure 6.  Now what we are going to do is to lay a grid over the blue gradient fill. To create a grid in Corel we need to select the grid tool which is located in toolbar located on the left side of the screen see figure 9

Figure 9

Once the grid is activated the grid toolbar becomes active. In the toolbar it is possible to tell Corel how many rows and columns to make in the grid. Because we have made 40 numbers across and 10 down (this is different from above and is added to allow for easy identification of the colours location on the grid.

Figure 10

30. Next we need to draw the grid. Start by locating the start of your grid at the top left corner – see Figure 11. Drag to the bottom right so that you cover the whole box – see Figure 12.

Figure 11

Figure 12

31. Figure 12 shows the grid covering the whole box. You can now easily have your customer identify the custom colour by counting over and down to locate the box. Figure 13 shows a close up of the grid setup.

Figure 13

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Download RGB swatch page

Creating a Custom Colour Swatch Chart

One of the things that can be a problem when you are sublimating is creating colours that are the same as on your screen as what you get on your finished product. One way to help solve this problem is to create a swatch of your colours and print the swatch out so that you can compare the colours on your screen with what you have printed.

Creating the Swatch in CorelDraw Version 8 and 9

The colour chart file located below is a CorelDraw 8 file that has been created by McCollough for those who wish to print out the standard RGB chart. Each one of the color swatches has its appropriate RGB numbers attached to it. All you need to do is open the file and print it out on you material that you want to use for sublimation.

CorelDraw Version 10 and 11

It is quite easy to create a swatch if you have CorelDraw 10 or 11. We will be using the macro language – VBA – which will need to be installed on your computer. Go to TOOLS | VISUAL BASIC | PLAY – see figure 1.

Figure 1

2. Next you will be presented with a dialogue box. Pick “All Standard Projects” that is located in the “macros in” drop down menu – see Figure 2.

Figure 2

3. Next you will see a listing under the “Macro Name” called CorelMacros.CreateColorSwatch. Select it – see figure 3

Figure 3

4. Click on the run button. 5. Figure 4 is the dialogue button that is run. You can pick whatever colour system that you want. In figure 4 I have the RGB palette loaded as this is the active palette that is loaded into CorelDraw. You can pick what ever swatch you want to create. You can create a custom colour palette and than run this command to create a swatch of those colours. The spacing is the amount of space between each swatch and the outline is if you want to create a black out line around the each swatch.

Figure 4

6. Figure 5 is a screen shot of the swatch I created in CorelDraw. I used a spacing of 10.

Figure 5

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