[Openicc] Printing Plans GhostScript / sRGB / ICC

[Alastair M. Robinson]

Hi :)

On 03/03/11 00:47, Hal V. Engel wrote:

> That is a possibiliy but why not just tag the objects in the PDF file
> correctly so that it is passed through? After all if the app is smart
> enough to produce color managed spool files it should be smart enough to
> figure out what the printing pipeline will pass through directly to the
> printer.

The problem isn't just with apps that want to print ready-targetted 
images, it's with apps that aren't colour-smart, and printing legacy 
PDFs.  That's going to be pretty much everything for some considerable time.

> The only time pass through or not is ambiguous is when there is no
> OutputIntent and the objects are tagged as DeviceXXX and there is only
> one DeviceXXX type used and it matches the printer color mode.

Unfortunately, that's going to be a very common situation!  Almost all 
consumer printer drivers currently in use expect RGB input, and most 
apps will print via a toolkit - none of the toolkits is colour-smart 
with regard to PDF output as yet, and realistically it will be very long 
time before they are.

> aware app wanting it's already CMed spool file to pass through should
> set the profiles of the embedded objects == the OutputIntent and it will
> get pass through since this is completely unambiguous. The main thing is
> to make sure that pdftoraster honors OutputIntent.

You make that sound easy, but as far as I know it's not even close to 
being possible with either Cairo or Qt.

All the best
--
Alastair M. Robinson