[Openicc] CUPS Color Management under Linux gets into distros

[Peter Linnell]

On 02/08/2011 05:33 PM, Till Kamppeter wrote:
> [ This mail is posted to the OpenICC mailing list, Please always reply
>   with "Reply to all" so that it gets to the list and all CCs. Thanks. ]
> 
> Hi,
> 
> we will have some color management in a distro soon. I have added Koji
> Otani's Poppler-based pdftoraster filter to the CUPS package for Ubuntu
> Natty (release end of April, currently available as the development
> branch of Ubuntu) and Debian unstable. This pdftoraster filter replaces
> the one shipped with Ghostscript and in addition to being much faster
> and more reliable with complex PDFs it implements CUPS' ICC profile
> support as described in the documentation:
> 
> http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-1.4/spec-ppd.html#cupsICCProfile
> http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-1.4/spec-raster.html#TABLE2
> http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-1.4/raster-driver.html#COLOR
> 
> Otani-san, am I correct that with this pdftoraster we have ICC-profile
> support for CUPS Raster drivers as described in the CUPS doc? How do I
> supply a rendering intent? Are there any additional non-PPD options to
> supply to print jobs?
> 
> Color management experts from OpenICC and driver developers, please test
> this feature and report your experience here. You could ship ICC
> profiles for installation in /usr/share/cups/profile/ to improve your
> printer's output quality.
> 
> Color management experts from OpenICC, WDYT about this color management
> effort? Is this already a step forward? Is it at least the correct
> effort for consumer-level printing? What needs to be added to support
> pro and prosumer printing?
> 
> For testing you need the PDF printing workflow:
> 
> https://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/openprinting/pdf_as_standard_print_job_format
> 
> 
> This is already implemented in Ubuntu and Debian and the newest
> snapshots of Natty and unstable contain the new pdftoraster. Do a
> complete system update ("sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get
> dist-upgrade") after having booted or installed the system from a daily
> live CD or Alpha version. You must have the package cups of version
> 1.4.5-3.
> 
> On other distributions you have to install the PDF workflow by compiling
> from source, following the instructions on the page linked above.
> 
> Please report your experience here and discuss.
> 
> Patches are also welcome to make the pdftoraster of Ghostscript
> implementing CUPS' ICC profile support.
> 
>    Till
> 
> 
> P. S.: In April there will be also a session on the OpenPrinting Summit
> about Color Management for printing with Linux.
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Hi Till,

This is terrific news and let's hope this get's into other distros soon.

Just two comments:

1. Path pollution - most of the color aware apps honor
http://www.oyranos.com/wiki/index.php?title=OpenIccDirectoryProposal for
storing ICC profiles. Can we avoid adding another path ?

2. For those not at the Printing Summit, follow on discussion could also
occur at LGM http://libregraphicsmeeting.org in mid May in Monrteal. We
are focusing this year more on development issues and I am aiming to
have some workshops/talks on color management as well. Of course all the
list members would be welcome to join, as well. There is no registration
fee and lodging is reasonable. Scribus, GIMP, Krita, Oryanos and
Inkscape will be there, as they are some of the principal users of color
management in OSS.

Thanks for this good news.

Cheers,
Peter