[Leica] Re: Color manipulation

[lrzeitlin at optonline.net (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

Today's New York Times (May 2) announced a new color manipulation  
scheme from Xerox. Here is a condensation of the article.

By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH
To the human eye, that flower in the photo is reddish orange, that  
sky is light blue, that sun shines brilliant yellow.

But when software tells a printer to reproduce that image, it uses a  
long, unwieldy set of numbers and letters to describe those colors ?  
and a totally different set of characters to describe shades that are  
a tad lighter, or a bit darker, or a whole lot brighter. The upshot  
is that most laymen would have to attend the computer equivalent of  
Berlitz to learn how to get the shades they want.

But if Xerox has its way, that will not be true much longer. This  
week the company introduced the software equivalent of a translator  
that can turn plain color speech into fluent computerese. Type the  
command, ?Make the sun a brighter yellow,? and the printer will read,  
?Go with color CIELAB[88, -3, 64].?

Xerox also expects to display a preview version on the screen to show  
how the colors in the print might differ from the image on the  
monitor, so that the user can modify the colors before printing. Mr.  
Woolfe said later versions might include voice recognition, so users  
could literally tell the printer what colors they wanted.

?The important thing,? he said, ?is that people without technical  
skills will finally have an easy way to get the colors they want.?


Now what does it do for B&W?

Larry Z