Create a custom Color bar:

  • MeasureColor comes with a number of color bar definitions installed by default.
  • A ‘color bar definition’ is MeasureColor’s internal format that describes the individual patches in a specific color bar.
  • Note: MeasureColor does not generate the physical color bar for you.

What you need:

  • MeasureColor license
  • A printed example of the color bar you wish to add to MeasureColor (we’ll use the one shown above)
  • In this QuickStart, we’ll create a color bar that can be used for many generic quality assurance tasks
  • Compliant measurement device

MeasureColor workflow:

  • Open the ‘Colorbar editor’ module
  • On the bottom right, click on ‘Add’ to add a new color bar definition
  • In the first window, provide a name and a short description of your color bar and optionally select the company that will use it (when you have multiple companies defined in your database)
  • Add the patch width and height in millimeter (mm) format
  • Leave the ‘repeats’ marker unselected
  • Click on ‘Next’, this will open the ‘Visual color bar editor’ window
  • The view shows a visual area where all color bar patches will show up after adding them to the color bar – A number of default patches for K/C/M/Y, Paperwhite (PW), Gray Balance (BH, BM, BS), overprint (R/G/B) and a ‘custom’ patch are shown for easy selection

Building your color bar from scratch

  • First, analyze your physical color bar (in this case, the color bar in the PDF)
  • You see solids and dot gain patches, overprint, and paperwhite patches, and 3 gray balance patches
  • Starting from the left of the color bar, add the corresponding patches by clicking on the buttons in the Color bar editor view
  • In this example, we’ll click on ‘100’ Cyan, then on ‘25’ Magenta, ‘75’ Cyan, ‘50’ Magenta, ‘50’ Cyan, ‘75’ Magenta, ‘25’ Cyan, ‘100’ Magenta
  • Continue for Yellow and Black
  • Now add the paper white (PW) patch
  • Next is the ‘R’ (Red) overprint patch
  • To add the first Gray balance patch, click on ‘BH’ and choose ‘G7’ from the pull-down menu*
  • Next, add the ‘G’ (Green) overprint patch – Add the second Gray balance patch by clicking on ‘BM’ and then select ‘G7’ from the pull-down menu*
  • Now add the ‘B’ (Blue) overprint patch
  • Finally, add the last Gray balance patch ‘BM’, and choose ‘G7’ as the desired gray balance standard*

About MeasureColor’s Gray balance patches

Gray Balance patches provide important information about the print quality so we want to add them as often as possible. These special patches are built up in a predefined combination of Cyan/Magenta/Yellow tints and unfortunately, there are many ‘standards’ that define Gray Balance. Therefore, it is necessary for you to know which Gray balance standard is used in your color bar in order to select the proper patch in the MeasureColor Color bar definition.

Adding Spot colors to the color bar definition

By default, the patch list on the bottom part of the view contains the most used patches for each of the Process colors. If you need to add additional spot colors to your color bar, simply add a color by clicking on the ‘Add color’ button. This will add a row for an additional spot color each time you click on it. The colors in this editor view are predefined and cannot be changed as they will get their actual color mapped to it during job setup (Process Control module).

Adding special (custom) patches from industry-standard color bars

Each reference set in MeasureColor is built on a list of predefined patches. Besides solids and overprints, most used tint values and special patches from industry default color bars are added as well to the references.
By clicking on the ‘Custom’ button you can add one of these patches:

  • In the Custom color pop in view, select ‘Use reference’ and select a reference set (e.g. ISO_coated_v2_eci.icc)
  • Open the pulldown menu ‘Reference patch’ this will show all available patches in that reference
  • Scroll the list and find your special patch (like ‘MW3_ A24’ for the last patch of the first row of the Ugra/Fogra mediawedge)

Overview of MeasureColor-supported Gray Balance patches

short code Name high light(BH) mid tone(BM) shadow(BS)
BR Brunner 50/41/41
G7 G7 25/19/19 50/40/40 75/66/66
GC ECI GrayControl 27/19/20 45/36/36 66/56/56
MW MediaWedge 20/12/12 40/27/27 80/65/65
PV PressView(legacy) 20/14/13 40/29/28 80/70/68
TK Techkon 74/60/60
UG Ugra 75/62/60