ColorThink 1.0 Announcement

August 28, 2000 - San Francisco: CHROMiX announced here today a new suite of color management tools called ColorThink.

The ColorThink toolset is a suite of tools for managing, repairing, and graphing ICC profiles and understanding the color capabilities of devices.

"Never before has there been a suite of tools such as this available - and it's offered at very a reasonable price." said Steve Upton, president of CHROMiX "It's like the Extensions Manager meets Norton Utilities but it's all about color and ICC profiles and includes great 2D and 3D graphing."

ColorThink 1.0 is composed of 8 modules:

*** ColorThink Profile Manager - Like the Extension Manager except it works with ICC profiles installed in the System Folder. Enable or disable profiles individually or in sets, view them by internal or external names, and even disable all extraneous profiles in one step.

"While I find all of the ColorThink tools very useful I think the Profile Manager is a unique convenience" said Dan Culbertson, a ColorThink beta tester and color management user. "...In testing inks, papers and profiling software I generate hundreds of profiles. Profile Manager allows the creation of sets of profiles so that only those profiles actually necessary to my current operations load and are visible...this is a profile organizer beyond compare"

*** ColorThink Profile Inspector - Opens profiles in a unique graphical profile viewer. A patent-pending viewer shows the primary colors of profiles as well as summarizes profiles' white and black points, table sizes and other settings while performing a comprehensive 12-point integrity check. Header and extended tags are browsable and any errors or warnings are neatly summarized and can be fixed with the Profile Doctor. Profile parameters such as rendering intent, preferred CMM and others can be quickly edited.

*** ColorThink Profile Doctor - the Profile Doctor performs 16 comprehensive tests on profiles and the system to ensure problems are discovered and fixed. Common problems like the Mac OS not recognizing profiles, profile naming confusion, color corruption and even crashing can be discovered and fixed using the Profile Doctor.

"ColorThink is an invaluable addition to my toolkit, as a profile manager, a profile doctor, a teaching and a learning tool." agreed Bruce Fraser, noted color management author, speaker and consultant

*** ColorThink Image Inspector - The Image inspector opens multiple image formats, displaying the embedded profile and allowing it to be copied out to the Finder, opened with the Profile Inspector or installed directly into the System folder. Embedded profiles can be removed or new profiles embedded into the image. Images' colors can also be summarized into lists for graphing in 2D and 3D.

"ColorThink has too many great profile analysis and editing tools to pick a favorite; but I can state that the one I use most frequently is the profile extraction feature... it is part of my daily process to select an image, check the attached profile, and extract it for further use or analysis." C. David Tobie - Design Cooperative

*** Graphing (2D and 3D) - ColorThink has comprehensive graphing of profiles and color lists in two and three dimensions. 2D graphs can be used to quickly compare device gamuts, evaluate media white points, and graph color lists in Yxy, Luv or Lab coordinates. 3D graphing provides a more accurate view of device color gamuts and 3D gamut comparisons can uncover profile problems as well as show gamut differences for determining best working spaces, proofing systems, etc. A unique 3-D vector compare mode will plot the difference between two sets of colors as vector "arrows" in 3D. There is simply no better way to track color shifts or illustrate the differences between profile settings, rendering intents, and so forth.

*** ColorThink Profile Linker - device link profiles can be created for use with RIPs and color servers quickly and easily. Just drag source and destination profiles into the linker and ColorThink will quickly build an ICC compliant device link profile.

*** ColorThink Renamer - Many users do not realize that ICC profiles have internal and external (file) names. Changing the file name will not change the name that shows in many application menus. Renamer allows quick renaming or synchronizing of the internal name, external name or both.

"Our color consulting professionals have been using these tools in the field to teach color management concepts and solve color management problems." said Upton, "Now we have made these tools available as an easy-to-use suite for a price that's unheard of in this industry"

CHROMiX ColorThink is for Mac OS 8.5.1 and ColorSync 2.6.1 or greater and is priced at $129. Special introductory pricing of $99 will be in effect from the planned ship date of Sept 15, 2000 through Oct 15, 1999. ColorThink will be available for purchase directly from www.chromix.com.

Steve Upton of CHROMiX will be demonstrating the full CHROMiX ColorThink toolset at Seybold SF 2000 August 29-31 in San Francisco's Moscone center. Go to the Rods & Cones booth #2430 in the South hall (right rear corner) every odd hour on the hour (11, 1, 3, 5 pm) for a full demonstration.


CHROMiX is a consulting, sales and development firm concentrating on image fidelity issues and workflow streamlining. Based in Seattle, CHROMiX offers a comprehensive website including a full color management store and profilecentral.com, a free online clearing house of ICC profiles for printers, photographers, designers, and anyone interested in high quality images.

(c)2000 CHROMiX ColorSync, MacOS, Norton Utilities trademarks of their respective companies. ColorThink is a trademark of CHROMiX - all rights reserved.

Media Contact:

Steve Upton, President & CEO
CHROMiX
uptonpr(at)chromix.com
www.chromix.com
www.profilecentral.com
8320 5th Ave NE, Suite B
Seattle, WA