[CREATE] ink/paper simulation

[Christoph Schäfer]

OK, I'll bite ;)

The issue is a bit more complicated as it seems to be at first sight (as it 
probably always is).

Disclaimer: I'm describing the issue mainly from the Scribus point of view, 
but I think it may be even more complicated for other projects (or not, as I 
may very well be mistaken).

Let me first describe the status of emulating background colours in Scribus. 
It's rather primitive, as it only permits to define an emulation of the 
printing material based on a Qt colour dialog (RGB/HSV values).

What we need instead is a database of colour values of real-world colours of 
printing materials, and these must not be restricted to paper, even though 
paper would be a good start.

It hasn't been exactly a secret, but I didn't publish my efforts so far, so 
here's a short description of what I've been doing wrt Free 
software/standards recently: I have sent emails to about 300 colour vendors 
all over the world (the exception being Pantone, as we all know their 
stance). In addition, I also spent countless hours on the phone with 
negotiations.

The results are more than promising. While some major (and also some minor) 
colour vendors of all sorts (not just ink, but also glass or plastics) agreed 
to make their colours available to Scribus, sometimes in return for being 
mentioned as a supporter on our website, they did so under Free licenses 
(most of them BSD-style). This means that most, if not all FLOSS graphics 
projects will be able to use these palettes in the future.

I hope you keep this message low-profile for the time being, but the real 
message is: Please send me links to every paper manufacturer you know of, so 
that I can ask for colour values (ideally at least D50 and D65). In my 
experience, most paper vendors don't have such values available, and in this 
case, we need someone who can actually measure the colours and provide the 
Create projects as well the respective vendors with the results (remember the 
principle of "do ut des").

Paper would only be a first start, of course, as there are other materials 
(e.g. FOREX, textiles, different kinds of packaging material) that serve as a 
printing background. 

As said above, just send me links (and, if possible, some background info), 
and I will start a mailing action, as well as using the phone, if necessary.

In addition to what I wrote above, we may have to think about an open format 
for emulated backgrounds. Or would existing formats suffice, and we'd only 
need to care to place the background colours/surfaces in another standard 
directory?

Jon Cruz: It's your turn ;)

Cheers

Christoph