Paul Sherfield analyses Fujifilm’s colour management and image enhancement tool

Fujifilm has always been a leader in innovative colour management technologies for the imaging markets, both for consumer photo printing with its mini lab products and within the professional graphic arts arena with its scanning, workflow and pre-press solutions.

Drupa 2008 saw a number of new colour management tools showcased by Fujifilm including: upgrades to colour management within its class leading cross media workflow, XMF; a solution for managing colour and quality assurance across print production processes, sites and technologies, Taskero Universe; new solutions for soft proofing, such as Pure Proof M, and colour temperature lighting simulation, the Dynamic Colour Management System (surely an interim name?).  Most interesting was version 5.0 of its ubiquitous colour management and image enhancement tool, XMF C-Fit.

Optimum images in minimum time

Fujifilm's XMF C-Fit is aimed at users who need to process many 100s of images in a short time, with minimal intervention.  The software is, in many ways, difficult to classify as it serves numerous colour management functions, together with automated and semi-automated image enhancement.

Server based, on a Windows XP or Server 2003 platform, it crosses over a number of other server based colour management products, none of which offers the same range of functions as XMF C-Fit.

It will work as a colour management server automatically converting images, using ICC profiles from and to Greyscale, RGB and CMYK colour spaces with full control of rendering intents.

Fade to grey

Conversion to Greyscale images is often an issue with desktop packages.  However, within XMF C-Fit, an automated conversion engine looks at the best way to convert an RGB image to a full range greyscale image.

In this area of multi image conversion, XMF C-Fit can use Fujifilm's Appearance Mapping technology.  For the technically minded this is a new gamut mapping technology developed by Fujifilm, which uses the colour gamut of the RGB master file to maximise the gamut of the CMYK target profile.

This can be thought of as additional Fujifilm rendering intents, alongside saturation, perceptual, relative colorimetric and absolute colorimetric, which aim to give the best possible conversion from RGB to CMYK, while retaining the ‘feel' of the original image.

As well as processing the normal image file formats, XMF C-Fit v 5.0 can colour manage images within a PDF file, changing colour space and profile, using the same functions as above. It uses a Document Transfer function which also gives control of resolution and ink limit settings, the latter very important when repurposing PDFs to differing print processes and conditions, and for ink savings. Control is also given for security settings.

However, the major advantage XMF C-Fit has over similar products is its Automated Image Enhancement engine. Based on Fujifilm's Image Intelligence^TM technology, this gives the user automatic image correction and enhancement to preset rules and within predefined workflows called ‘Job Tickets'.

Image Intelligence^TM comprises a number of different technologies, including: Light Source recognition for correcting white balance issues; Dynamic Range Control for correcting poor exposures; Scene Classification, which can recognise a particular type of image, a sunset, colour casts, landscapes etc, and adjust the image accordingly; Face Detection for automatic red eye correction; automated skin smoothing, and dot gain adjustment and sharpness enhancement.

Other functions include resizing and rotation, output resolution control, control of CMYK ink limits (TAC) and file format conversion.

How does this work in practice?

The software is Windows server based with PC and Mac clients. There are three levels of access: ‘System Manager' which gives full access to all functions; ‘User' which gives access to use and edit job queues, and ‘Guest' which only allows access to view the Job Queues.

The system is hot (or drop folder) based, with each hot folder in the world of XMF C-Fit referred to as a ‘Job Ticket'. This Job Ticket defines the workflow and automated functions needed, so it could be for RGB to Greyscale conversion, with the ability to set sharpness, choice of colour filter for the greyscale conversion, image optimisation (tone curve in the shadows), and output image format (TIFF, JPEG etc).

When creating a ‘Job Ticket' all of XMF C-Fit's functions are shown as tools, which can be selected to form the workflow. Each tool (eg. RGB to CMYK, CMYK to CMYK, Auto White Balance, Image Optimise, etc) is fully configurable, using menus or pre-configured templates depending on the tool's function.  Each XMF C-Fit Job Ticket would therefore have a different function dependent on the client's needs. An Input and Output tool is then used to set up the hot folder as well as the priority and location of the output.

All of this can work automatically or, if required, semi-automatically where the user is able to review the conversions and corrections before acceptance. In a semi-automated workflow, differing Image Optimisation templates (methods) can be viewed for a converted image and the best accepted, or even opened in a retouching package for that final ‘tweak".

Additionally, the ‘Compare / Edit results' functionality within the C-Fit Setup tool, via the Windows or PC client, allows an image to be previewed in four windows, each window using a differing colour workflow. These workflows can be amended from within this tool and then a number of images can be sent to be processed automatically using the chosen workflow.

PDF compatible

XMF C-Fit can also process PDFs!  All the functions, both for colour correction and conversion are available and can be used to process images within a PDF. In addition, it can solve some of the common issues with PDFs such as converting RGB blacks to process black only. It will also honour PDF X output intents and reassign the selected output CMYK profile as the new PDF X output intent.

This brief outline of XMF C-Fit only touches the edges of its many functions. So, at whom is it aimed?  Basically, any graphic arts organisation processing dozens of images a day would benefit from this software.

Its ability as a colour management server with Fujifilm's Dynamic Colour Management System for RGB to CMYK and CMYK to CMYK conversions will improve the quality and speed of conversions compared to desktop applications.  Add to this XMF C-Fit's PDF conversion tools with ink limiting and dot gain control and the package becomes even more complete.

The final and most impressive part of XMF C-Fit is its Automated Image Enhancement engine.  Providing the ability to automatically correct images within a predefined colour managed workflow, this addition makes this software one of the most complete systems available on the market.

About Paul Sherfield

Paul Sherfield runs the Missing Horse Consultancy and is well known in the printing and pre-press industry as having considerable knowledge on digital workflows, with a special expertise on the business reasoning behind such systems.

He has consulted for and project managed some of the most successful digital pre-media systems in the UK.

The Missing Horse Consultancy's main area of expertise is designing bespoke colour managed page workflows from image and page creation, PDF standards and production, proofing and on to ISO 12647/2 standard printing conditions at press.

He is active in a number of industry groups, including Digital Ad Lab and the BPIF Technical Standards Committee.  He is chairman of the BPIF working group on ISO 12647/2 certification, a member of the UK ISO TAG committee for ISO printing standards and is a regular speaker at seminars and conferences.