Graphs and Sheets

State of the Computer Book Market, Q206 details in a TreeMap 2D graph the rise of C# and Ruby, decline of Java as languages.

In typical MBA fashion, I am enamored with the graph. How do you create these style of graphs? How does the set of data need to be formatted? The graph is an excellent way to show trends; growth, decline and relative size all in one.

Which leads me to Microsoft Office 2007. The beta was available a month of so ago. As a professional Excel jockey, Excel 2007 was the first application I launched. (OK, second. Outlook 2007 was first!). You know, its the little things…

The designer that re-engineered the “Named Ranges” and “PivotTable” UI in Excel 2007 needs a medal. Love it.

To radically redesign an interface in a set of applications that are directly attached to knowledge worker productivity is a brave move. Professional Photoshop users keep Adobe honest when it comes to making life easy. Do knowledge workers have a similar voice?

Now crossing my fingers for TreeMaps in Excel 200x.

Largest Public Flex App: Australia: 1 vs. World: 0

Adobe Flex 2.0 was announced in June 2006, and it’s on my list of “things” to spend some quality time with over the next few months. Building something more interesting that flat web pages; with AJAX, Flex and WPF is a key “learning point” whilst offline.

RocketBoots, a strong supporter of Adobe and its technology have posted some information on the AFR Access project AFR Access. Based on Flex 1.5, it shows what is possible — and that stands out over dull HTML. Go take a squiz.

For those in Australia, you can now purchase Adobe Flex Builder from online stores such as Harris Technology. For those on MacOS, go have a look at this blog entry for the corporate line

CMYK is not Evil

When taking your piece of digital design to the printed world, there is this nasty, some would say: evil, thing called CMYK. Dynamic Graphics magazine has a five-point article on how to survive in a CMYK world. http://www.dynamicgraphics.com/dgm/Article/28597

Excellent read, and even better: tag/bookmark it for later.

Some notes of my own, based on 8 years of questions from customers. I’ll add to this, so you can tag it and come back.

  1. In a majority of cases, a Print designer works in RGB or CMYK. RGB stands for Red-Green-Blue; this is ‘subtractive’ colors using light to generate the colors you see on screen. CMYK is Cyan Magenta Yellow and Black(K). This is a ‘additive’ mechanism where these inks are mixed together to generate the colors we see. Light is ‘reflected’ through the ink, off the paper to your eye. As these color mechanisms are very different, the color results are different.
  2. The screen; LCD or CRT, will not show all the colours that can be printed: especially in the shadows, blues, purples and oranges. CMYK has a color space that is different to monitors we view our designs. You can purchase devices to ensure that where colors can be displayed onscreen: they match.
  3. Set the background/desktop of your OS to neutral gray, and run the color calibration software to set your monitor correctly. The environment in which you evaluate color; the lighting, background lighting and the colors on your screen get in the way of color evaluation. If you can afford it, purchase a screen color calibration device. If you can print a neutral gray with no color cast (too much CMY), you are 80% to a calibrated device.
  4. Another “name” for CMYK is Process Colors, or just Process. Another way to think of this is “Process” equals “The normal Process”. All JPEGs may not be RGB; you can have CMYK JPEGs.
  5. There is a myriad of software components that can convert RGB to CMYK. These are called Color Management “Engines”. It is a mathematical process. Adobe Photoshop converts between these colorspaces. So does Apple’s Colorsync, so does the software that sits inside a RIP or a printer driver. As each of these pieces of software are not written by the same people, your results may and probably will differ depending on the environment. Use the software you can trust.
  6. Color Profiles, which describe the colorspace a particular image is “in” can be small, or large (up to 1Mb). Software as described above may use this Profile to convert from one colorspace to another; some software may ignore some parts of the profile and the color results will differ. Some printer drivers just use their inbuilt software and ignore the color profiles altogether. Color Management, to work consistently, needs to use the same “color engine” consistently at all points to be 100% perfect.
  7. Color Profiles describe colors in RGB, CMYK or a colorspace called “CIE L*a*b” (shortened to LAB). LAB describes color in a device independent (that is, not screen, not printer) using Lightness (L), Red-Green (a) and Yellow-Blue (b). If you use a Color Management Engine to convert from RGB to CMYK, the engine will pass through LAB first. Some specific colors, or color ranges, may have special “transforms” as described by the color profile.
  8. The CMYK colorspace can print a wide variety of colors. Look at a coffee table book; it’s is a high screen (150lpi to 175lpi) print – printed in CMYK. Yes, there are other color spaces that add 2 or more plates that “mix together” extra colors to result in a higher number of printed colors (also known as higher range colorspace). Printing CMYK + spot plates is not the same. The extra 2 plates are printing two specific colors. You are asking the Printer to add an extra two colors in the print run, add extra inks. This costs money. In a large number of cases, you are printing normal CMYK. Ensure your Spots are converted to Process (CMYK)
  9. Convert to CMYK as late as possible in your design, if you can. Keeping originals in a format closest to the original (RGB for Stock Photography, in the most lossless compression, or Camera Raw formats such as DNG) will mean that you can convert to the target CMYK and keep as much color in the pixels as possible. RGB, based on the same compression settings, will be 25% smaller, too.
  10. There is nothing like a printed proof from a color-matched, calibrated device. Inkjet or otherwise; to ensure a match. But also note that a proofer is not the press/digital press – so your design colors may not exactly match. If the proofer is not yours, ask when it was last calibrated. Ask if the paper and inks being used are consistent.
  11. Swatches from Pantone and others ensure that key colors: such as Corporate logos, match at print time. The colors on screen may not exactly match (see #1 above). Once you use these swatches, you are manually color managing. Pantone swatches have an associated CMYK value attached to the named swatch. Rarely will you use a Pantone color for a “spot” or extra plate.
  12. Once you “hard code” a CMYK value, or use a commercial swatch set like Pantone – you are in control of the color. Color Management may change the colors later on, but generally you are telling the Press operator: I want this mix across my four plates.
  13. If you work in RGB you are leaving other systems (ColorSync on MacOS X, maybe printing from InDesign) to decide how to convert to CMYK. If you are printing from Word to a consumer inkjet printer, the drivers are using RGB and the printer driver converts to CMYK (or more inks) for you. The more information you attach to your RGB image (source Color Profile for instance), the greater chance your output driver will successfully print the colors.
  14. Press operators are the most highly experienced color people you will ever meet. If you are at the design end of the world, and you meet one; buy them a beer or coffee and have a chat. Each one will have a story about an “unprintable job”. Given no proof, they will match the print to what our eyes will notice most: flesh tones, green grass/trees and a blue sky. The central modus operandi is to ensure that the color is believable in the printed result. Our mind is trained to recognise these colors based on our mental perception of the image as a whole. If there is a printed proof, they will obviously match to the proof. Trust the Press operator.
  15. RIPs, the devices that take your PDF or file and generate proofs or plates, rasterize (convert to very, very high DPIs) images (bitmaps) and vectors (text, lines, boxes) through different paths. Whilst there are settings in the RIPs to turn this off, you cannot be sure that this is the setting used. Be very, very careful if you are attempting to match the color of a vector object to the color in a bitmap object. RIPs may use their own Color Management Engine; generally this engine will be unknown to you.

References and further Reading

  • Color Articles from Color Remedies. Greater than 6 years old, but still relevant.

Taking Time To Reboot

On January 6th this year, I had a small personal celebration: my twentieth (20th) year of full-time work. Whilst I am at my third employer, I’ve never had more than a day between jobs. (www.linkedin.com Profile: Nick Hodge) The longest holiday I’ve had in last 20 years has been the month the Hodge family went to Europe (70 Days, 7 Countries). Apart from that refresh, its been a week or two here and there.

Here I am, in my late thirties. A potentially jeopardous time for men. They do silly things like buy fast red sports cars (Scarlett Comes out in Style). The body doesn’t look, feel and work the same old way. And they start to look ahead a little, and drive a little slower.

We are all bound by the decisions we make: what cars we drive, what houses to buy; what job to do; and further bound by expectations: what do people expect from me? Why do I have to get up every morning and go to work? It leads a difficult decision: “Can I get off this merry-go-round?”.

After weighing up these conundrums, I’ve decided to spend the next 5-6 months “rebooting”, “reseting” and “reloading”, prepapring for the next 20 years. Slow down, smell the roses. Look back and look ahead. Read some books, learn some new things. Return to Adobe in a different role. Calm down and get stuff done that matters. And as Carl Sagan said to his students: “Do Something” (Carl Sagan)

After a busy, full and fun 20 years – that “something” remains equally as ethereal, but I’ll be ready to tackle it head on.

Oh Yeah

Sick of pointing and clicking? Want to go back to your roots and type in your web commands. Go Yub Nub.

If you are a professional working with video, audio, DVD etc : Adobe announces Production Studio with new versions of After Effects (Windows and Mac) 7.0, Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, Adobe Audition 2.0, Adobe Encore DVD 2.0; Introduces Adobe Dynamic Link; and Delivers Advanced Flash Video Support.

Adobe and Macromedia

Adobe purchases Macromedia. It took almost 9 months (from announcement to close) – and it feels like we’ve just given birth to a new company. Yesterday, Day 1, was a whirlwind of new products, people, processes, phonecalls and general excitement. Due to the strict laws in regards to mergers, it has been easier to let other post about the impending birth.

I’ve been using 30-day trial versions Dreamweaver 8 and ColdFusion for some internal projects to wrap my mind around some of the web tools; Mark Szulc has been posting Flash 8 video on his site. There is a myriad of other new toys to pick up, play with and understand where they fit into this new universe of Adobe.

I strongly suggest listening to Bruce Chizen’s Breezo (new term, the noun for a Breeze presentation) and reading the Acquisition FAQ.