Introducing CHROMiX MaxwellAll your color, anytime, anywhere.

Welcome!

You're at the right place for everything color...

If you care about color and are struggling with color management, we can help.

If you have comments or problems, please let us know.

ColorThink Pro has arrived. Go 'whoa!' all over again.
  • Sep 01, 2010

    Brian Lawler's excellent Blognosticator blog has a great entry about color management in web browsers.

    For a good browser test you should also check out this page at the ICC's site which also tests for ICC v4 compliance. (a new version of the ICC profile format that is slow in being supported)

    Color management in web browsers is actually quite a complicated thing. Web browsers are not just image viewers but are much more like InDesign and Quark. They are image and content aggregators (not to mention application platforms). So even though an image may contain a profile and the browser may display it properly, many or all of the other elements on the page may not display properly. In many layouts and designs, incomplete color management is worse than none.

    We will continue to research, report and supply solutions to color in the digital display realm, so stay tuned.
  • Aug 26, 2010



    Here's a great write up of the new version of the Universal Serial Bus standard: USB 3.0. This new version of USB will enable much faster transfer of information - to the tune of about 5 gigabytes per second. This is 10 times faster than USB 2.0. Right now you can buy adapter cards and cables to enable this on your computer, and there are a few external hard drives that are available. In the near future, computers will come with USB 3.0 built in. This is backwards compatible, so you can continue to use your current USB devices on the new systems with no problems. If you start seeing USB cables and jacks with a blue plastic inside - that's 3.0!

    This is a very understandable overview and it does not take too long to read:

  • Aug 09, 2010



    Spread the news: If you have a roll of Kodachrome in a glove compartment or a drawer or box somewhere, better get it processed now! The last Kodachrome processor in the world will no longer process Kodachrome at the end of this year (2010).

    http://www.dwaynesphoto.com/

    I read the following article and started waxing nostalgic over my film processing days:


    Kodachrome was such a different process. Even in its heyday there were only a handful of companies that actually processed it, which involved a long, elaborate process. There was only one company on the West Coast that did it as far as I know. It is not at all like the (relatively easy) E6 processing that is used to process other slide transparency film like Ektachrome or Fujichrome.



  • Jul 23, 2010



    We've done a flurry of transmissive profiles for different customers in the last few weeks, and it occurs to me that this might be an area of profiling that not too many people know about. Readers of this blog will be familiar with calibrating and profiling a display - which results in a monitor profile. Also, you can use a device that measures reflective color to make a printer profile. But a different flavor of printer profile is the transmissive profile.

    Instead of working with material that is intended to be displayed using some kind of light illuminating the front of the image, you can make a profile that is specifically for an image that will be lit from behind - back lit, and the color you see from this material is transmitted through the media. People who use transmissive profiles are usually printing onto transparent or semi-transparent film for display purposes.

    While it is technically possible to print onto film like this using a normal, "reflective" type profile - this will not normally capture the effect of light passing through this media. Especially for film that is less opaque, the effect of a light source transmitting through the semi-clear media and through the ink can best be captured using a spectrophotometer that is specially made for this purpose. And there are not too many of those around. At CHROMiX we use an X-Rite DTP-41T which is a specially modified DTP-41 that can measure transmissive light - and also can read entire strips of color at a time, rather than single colors at a time. Believe me, large targets can get very tedious one color at at time!

    Judging by the volume of transmissive material we profile, we might be the only commercial profiling provider around that offers this service.

    If you'd like more information on this, contact sales@chromix.com or techsupport@chromix.com or call 866-CHROMIX.
  • Jul 07, 2010


    Eizo has given out procedures that document the ability to get a continuous 10-bit output from Photoshop through to their displays. It has taken several years for the various hardware and software players to develop this capability. The last link in the chain has been the graphics card manufacturers, but it looks like there are a few graphics cards that can now support 10-bit color - on Mac and Windows.

    We've started to hear reports around the industry that people are actually making this work.

    http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/10bit.shtml

    http://www.imagescience.com.au/kb/questions/152/10+Bit+Output+Support

    I would not rush out and change your whole workflow over to this just yet. You know what they say about the cutting edge of technology often becoming the bleeding edge. Just the same, it's nice to see that we can do this now.