Technology in the news: Color management for the Web?

Although widespread implementation of color management is still in the early stages, many in the graphic communications industry have accepted that it is indeed viable, especially within a controlled production workflow. Today's production workflows, however, are increasingly digital and even multi-media and cross-media. Along with the inevitable questions about how to manage soft proofing, another question arises: What about color management for other ways of delivering content, especially electronic and online? Software-based systems to control online color delivery are already on the market, and author Julie Shaffer looks at the early entrants, explaining what these systems are designed to do and how they attempt to do it.

Many catalogers and retailers have also become "e-tailers" and frequently sell their products through both printed catalogs and online stores. As this kind of e-commerce has grown, it has become apparent that many consumers realize that they can't trust the colors they see on their monitors. This has had a negative impact on marketing color-sensitive products like clothing, household items, and cosmetics. A 1999 survey conducted by CyberDialog Research (Source: E-Color white paper) showed the following:

* 60% of Internet shoppers do not trust the colors they see on their monitors,

* 30% opted not to purchase an item because the color's accuracy was in doubt, and

* 15% reported returning a purchase because the item's color was different than what was expected based on the online image.

Millions of potential consumers are surfing the Web. They use a seemingly infinite number of configurations of computer and monitor model, video card, Web browser, and operating system-all of which affect how color is displayed on a computer system.

Put on your consumer hat for a moment. Would you assume that the color of a shirt displayed as an image on a website will match the actual shirt you pull out of the overnight delivery package? Probably not. In fact, as a graphic communications professional, you are probably even more skeptical than the average consumer about the reliability of colors you see displayed online.

If color management is difficult to implement in the controlled environment of a print production facility, how can we begin to imagine that an e-commerce provider can deliver an online image that looks the same on a PC in the Philippines as it does on a Mac in Montana? Can the color management envelope be pushed onto the Web?

Several companies are saying "Yes, indeed, it can." Among the companies currently offering color communication solutions for the Web are E-Color, Imation, Pantone, and WayTech Development. Implementation models vary, but all attack the problem of improving color accuracy on the Web.

It's important to note that all of these products are aimed primarily at online commerce, both business-to-- consumer and business-to-business. They were not developed as soft proofing tools aimed at the high-end graphic communications market.

Peter Bernard, vice president of products and marketing at E-Color, does say, however, that he perceives the market for E-Color's True Internet Color as "anywhere someone wants to control the image experience and make sure they're showing their best image, whether it's to maintain brand integrity or maintain a design proof-anywhere anyone wants to share a fair representation of the original work through the Web."

E-Color: True Internet Color(R)

E-Color (www.ecolor.com) entered the color management solutions business in 1993 with the introduction of an ICC-compatible monitor calibration tool called Colorific(R). Licensed to more than 40 hardware companies including Compaq, Hitachi and Samsung, Colorific ships as a value-added tool with many of the devices these companies manufacture.

True Internet Color(R), the company's color management product for the Web, is patterned on its Colorific model of keeping the monitor characterization process fast and simple. "There's a certain tolerance people will go through-and they won't go through 20 screens, so you have to keep it short and simple, collect just enough data to be accurate," says Bernard. As he notes, "There is a certain incremental benefit from getting more data, but not necessarily a good tradeoff in terms of usability."

On the market for just over a year, True Internet Color is based on a combination of end-user monitor characterization and a server-based image delivery system. When consumers visit any True Internet Color-enabled website, e.g., Bloomingdale's online e-store, they are offered the option of completing the characterization process using True Internet Color Tune-Up. The Tune-Up instructions specifically avoid words like "color management" or "characterization" to avoid scaring off nontechnical consumer users, says Bernard. The Tune-Up process involves the following four steps that anyone who has done a monitor calibration will find familiar:

1. Characterizing the brightness. Users are asked to adjust their monitor's brightness until an item on the test screen disappears.

2. Measuring the red, green, and blue guns. Each gun is measured independently by having users select the point at which the the red, green, and blue colored blocks disappear into the background.

3. Assessing the black cutoff point. Users are asked to choose the point at which a color first appears out of the background.

4. Repeat of step two, which further refines the final characterization profile.

Macintosh users with Apple's ColorSync(R) enabled on their systems will not even have to go through this four-- step process because Tune-Up will detect the ColorSync profile and use it instead of building a new one.

Once this process has been completed, True Internet Color retains the end user's characterization profile on a remote E-Color Image Server. A cookie dropped into the end user's system identifies the profile in the future. In fact, all users get a "meta-cookie," which means that their color profiles can be recognized by multiple domains. Once they complete the process through one True Internet Colorenabled e-commerce site, they don't have to repeat it when visiting any other True Internet Color-enabled site.

True Internet Color is an application service provider (ASP)-style extension to an e-commerce merchant's Web-publishing system. Images can be prepared using whatever method the e-commerce merchant normally uses, that method preferably employing a reliable ICC profile-based color-- managed workflow. True Internet Color will not improve images that are unacceptable to begin with.

When the images are posted to the e-commerce merchant's origin server, copies of the images and their embedded color profiles are simultaneously posted to an E-Color Image Server, which does all the color correction and serves to end users. Images are not color corrected "on the fly" or by page request, but are precorrected based on a set of common consumer monitor and color-space combinations. Multiple instances of each image reside on the E-Color Image Server, waiting to be served on request.

How does the server handle all these images? An E-Color Image Server is not a single server, nor is it even physically at E-Color's corporate location. True Internet Color uses a large content distribution network (examples include Akamai and Digital Island). As Bernard explains, when you as an end user go to the merchant's website, the merchant can check where you are geographically, and the network will then serve you an image from the server nearest to where you're actually sitting. This kind of distribution network handles the load of serving the images with what Bernard calls "geo-caching." Says Bernard, "The images are floated out intelligently to the different servers and you get images quickly and avoid traffic congestion."

When a consumer browses a True Internet Color-enabled site, a piece of code from E-Color instantly determines whether the consumer's system is True Internet Color-enabled. If it isn't, the origin server delivers the image information uncorrected (that is, without taking the consumer's monitor characterization into account). If the consumer's system is enabled, this code tags the HTML references to allow an E-Color Image Server to serve the image color pre-adjusted based on the consumer's monitor characterization profile. An icon that says "E-Color Corrected Site" identifies all sites that are True Internet Color-enabled.

Imation; Verifi(TM) Accurate Web Color

Imation (www.imation.com) first announced its intent to enter the Web color correction market on February 7, 2000, at Seybold Boston, introducing Verifi(TM) Accurate Web Color. Imation brings a long history and considerable experience in graphic arts color technologies to the endeavor. One live site using the technology is www.veryfineart.com.

Although similar to the service provided by True Internet Color, Imation's offering diverges in the way it implements the concept of providing corrected Web images. The Verifi technology is made up of four major components: the profiling process, the serving process, image preparation, and something David Veilleux, director of marketing and business development for the Verifi system, calls the "plumbing."

The profiling process is how end users enable Verifi Accurate Web Color (www.verifi.net/profiler) on their computers. Differing in several ways from E-Color's model, Verifi asks users to perform the following seven steps:

1. Prepare the monitor by adjusting brightness and contrast to their highest levels.

2. Set the red level by choosing from the darkest visible red from a range of colored numbers.

3. Set the green level by choosing from the darkest visible green from a range of colored numbers.

4. Set the blue level by choosing from the darkest visible blue from a range of colored numbers.

5. Define color based only on the green gun by determining where a certain green square blends into the background.

6. Refine color based only on the green gun by determining where a certain green square blends into the background.

7. Define tint through a grayscale measurement by determining where a certain block blends into the neutral gray background, (this screen will look familiar to anyone who has ever calibrated an Imation Rainbow proofer).

Like True Internet Color, Verifi is also a server-based solution but, again, the models differ. Hardware for the Verifi system consists of one or more Web servers owned and maintained by the e-commerce subscriber at the subscriber's chosen location. The servers run Verifi Administration software, which allows the subscribers to manage and correct images, present Verifi icons, and replicate cookies. All images are housed on the e-commerce subscriber's server, not Imation's. Imation manages a Verifi Profiler Server at its corporate location, but the server's job is merely to create end-user cookies and store color profile information.

Veilleux describes the process as follows: "When an end user clicks on a Web page that uses Verifi Accurate Web Color, the image request goes back to a server, not the server that does the profiling, but a server that's installed at the e-tailer client site. Any e-tailers who use Verify Accurate Web Color have a server at their location that runs our application. That server makes a call of the image, pulls it into memory, and reads the cookie value tagged to the image request, so it's right there all the time when it's needed."

The color correction process "touches every pixel, converts it [the image] to counteract the biases of a particular user's video display and graphics card, and turns it back into an image file format (i.e., JPEG) that the Web page refers to, and sends it downline to catch up to the browser and occupy the frame created for it." This means, explains Veilleux, that every user request gets an image unique to the request.

The third component that Imation considers critical to the success of the Verifi system is the image preparation process. Imation sends a team to all subscribers to make certain the production process that creates the original image files makes good images-ones that accurately represent the color of the products. In other words, the team make sure the scans or digital photographs are good before they even get into the Verifi system. If they are not, the team can assist subscribers in setting up a more accurate system. Without offering support at this level to their clients, says Veilleux, "The promise of accurate Web color can't be delivered-in fact it will be undermined."

The fourth component of the system is something Veilleux calls the 11 plumbing." As with E-Color's system, Imation's Verifi technology arranges for end users to run the profile once, after which they can visit any Verifi-enabled site without having to repeat the profiling process.

An icon identifies all Verifi-enabled websites. A full-color icon means the technology is working, a gray icon means the technology is on the site but that the end user has not deployed it, and a pastel icon means that it's time to re-profile. The Verifi system takes into account the fact that computer systems and monitors change with time-that phosphors age, people install new graphics cards, and so on. The cookie created by the Verifi profiling process has a date and time stamp, and when a profile is more than 90 days old, the pastel Verifi icons indicates to users that it's time to re-profile.

Pantone: TheRightColor(R)

Pantone, Inc. (www.pantone.com) has taken a different approach to ensuring accurate Web color with its product, TheRightColor(R) (www.therightcolor.com). "Our approach is more systemic and more process-oriented than just simply solving the issue of how color is displayed on the Internet," says Andy Hatkoff, Pantone's senior director of electronic color systems.

Based on research, says Hatkoff, Pantone believes that the average consumer will not calibrate the monitor at all. "Brightness and contrast controls are often behind the panel and a lot of consumers feel that means 'don't touch me,' so we are creating profiles for a number of the commonly distributed monitors and asking end users to select the kind of monitor they have from a list of canned profiles." TheRightColor relies on combining this type of basic monitor characterization with using something Pantone is famous for: a physical color system swatch guide.

The first PANTONE(R) color system was developed more than 40 years ago as a means for graphic designers and printers to communicate color effectively. PANTONE color specification is so entrenched in the graphic communications industry that there is probably not a design firm or prepress production facility that does not have a fan guide on the premises.

TheRightColor grew directly out of the PANTONE TEXTILE Color System(R) and is geared toward displaying images of products that were created using the Textile System, including fashion, home decor, and cosmetics. Pantone's founder Lawrence Herbert developed the textile-based system 15 years ago. The textile system serves the same function in the fashion industry that the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM(R) does in the graphic arts industry. Says Hatkoff: "It helps someone communicate color in a very unambiguous, very precise way that's not affected by names, culture, and similar things. Sunshine yellow for me might not be sunshine yellow for you." The PANTONE TEXTILE System has become a standard for the fashion and apparel industry, and the opportunity to develop TheRightColor grew from that system.

Hatkoff explains, "We noticed a real opportunity to help consumers, whether it be B2C or B2B, to help the color communication process so that they can deal with color just as efficiently as a professional market." He describes TheRightColor system as producing source-to-destination color, defining the source as the fashion designer and garment manufacturer who create items using the PANTONE TEXTILE System and the destination as a B2B site, a B2C site, a retail store, a kiosk, or wireless computing. "Essentially it provides color accuracy and color intent all the way from the beginning to whoever the consumer might be," says Hatkoff.

The system works like this: E-commerce sites using TheRightColor technology display images along with a corresponding PANTONE color swatch and number describing the color of the item. Complementary and contrasting PANTONE colors might also be displayed. The swatch can be clicked and expanded to a window called the Swatch Generator, which provides links to other items on the website in the same color or a coordinating color. It also offers the option to view the swatch as it would look under different simulated lighting conditions.

The PANTONE Shopping Color Guide is offered to consumers on the e-commerce website or is available directly through Pantone. The 1,757-- color fan guide is printed in hexachrome and approximates the PANTONE TEXTILE Swatch Guide. The fan guide is really the primary tool to use in this color matching system, providing consumers with a physical reference to each color they see online. "We realize that the biggest challenge is going to be getting those swatchbooks into people's hands," says Hatkoff. Swatchbooks can be custom branded by individual (r)etailers.

TheRightColor system does not employ server farms or ASP-style services but runs on the e-commerce subscriber's own image server.

For this system to be really effective, however, PANTONE color designations must be referenced in (r)etail product databases. If items are color-- referenced with a PANTONE number, there will not only be an objective way to describe color, but product searches can be done by color as well. To that end, Pantone recently formed an alliance with the National Retail Federation, the world's largest retail trade association. The NRF is involved with (r)etail identification barcoding, which contains information about product size and color. Through this alliance, Pantone has begun the process of populating industry databases with PANTONE numeric color designations.

Why is this of benefit to retailers? "Now a retailer can track color preference more accurately than ever before and replenish inventory more accurately-not just that we're running out of dark blue, but that we're running out of this specific blue," says Hatkoff. He contends that PANTONE color designations in barcode databases offer an increased opportunity for cross-- selling for retailers, especially when the systems designate complementary or contrasting colors.

By providing a swatchbook to consumers, Pantone sidestepped the debate about whether it is feasible to serve up truly color-corrected images to consumers via the World Wide Web.

The company's market is, to a certain extent, limited to industries that use the PANTONE TEXTILE Color System on the front end, like the fashion and garment industry, beauty and cosmetics, home furnishings, jewelry, and fine art. But as Hatkoff puts it, "Pantone's business is not printing fan guides. It's one of color communications and color languages."

WayTech: Coloreal(TM)

WayTech Development, Inc, (www.waytech.com), founded by a group of computer industry entrepreneurs in 1997, quickly became the third largest software company in Taiwan. While its core technologies can be found in document management, Internet/wireless communications and "smart" toy products, the company has entered the market of providing accurate Web color with Coloreal (www.coloreal.com).

WayTech eliminated the problem of getting consumers to go through a calibration process by not requiring them to do it at all. Instead, WayTech is working with computer and monitor manufacturers to embed color profile information directly into their systems.

Jo Kirkenaur, WayTech's director of color science, explains the process: "The monitors are calibrated and characterized in the factory, and the characterization data is stored in the EDID (extended display identification data) chip in the monitor. When mated with a Coloreal-enabled computer, the software queries the monitor for this information and creates the appropriate ICC display profile and installs this as the default monitor profile. The profile is then activated by a special tag in the HTML page that activates the ICM in Windows."

WayTech is working with Compaq as the first OEM for Coloreal. Coloreal-enabled systems are expected to be on the market later this year.

Consumers will recognize a Coloreal-enabled website by the Coloreal logo displayed on the site. This logo will match the one printed on the bezel of a Coloreal-enabled monitor. One additional service that WayTech's e-tail clients get is advice about how to prepare good color images using color management. The Coloreal technology is designed to ensure that end-users see the original image just as it was saved by the creator. "If you put bad images on a website," says Kirkenaur, "customers will see exactly how bad they are."

When in Doubt

When asked what he had to say to the doubters out there who do not believe that it is possible to deliver accurate color to Web browsers everywhere, Veilleux reiterated his statement that Imation's Verifi technology was not developed for soft proofing. "Our target market for this is those who are using the Web to make decisions where color is important. I don't put the graphic arts community in that space. That's more of a mission critical space. So our target markets are those who are using the Web for commerce where color is important but not mission critical."

Peter Bernard of E-Color answered in a similar vein, saying, "I think that people who really understand color science know that there are some limitations and some problems that can be solved and some that can't be solved. We solve the problems that can be solved."

Kirkenaur adds, "While you won't see a perfect match, as you might see in a high-end graphics environment with a color booth for viewing, the difference using the technology is remarkable. With Coloreal, we can get images 85 to 90% closer to the original than without it."

All of these products cater to the consumer market. (People who, unlike graphic arts professionals, don't scrutinize a restaurant menu to see if it was printed in register...) Their goal is to assist online retailers in assuring that customers see the products they offer as close to the original, in terms of color, as possible. It is still the retailer's responsibility, however, to begin the process with good original images. While crucial to the ability to offer color-accurate images to online consumers, these products will not make a bad image good.

[Sidebar]

This article was originally published in the EPS NEwsletter, Jan/Feb 2001. For information about the Electronic Prepress Section or the Newsletter, contact dgentile@gatf.org.

[Author Affiliation]

Julie Shaffer is director of GATF's Robert Howard Center for Imaging Excellence.