Monaco Article

An article written by Monaco Systems, Inc. from 2003

Color Management Expert Teaches Uses MonacoEZcolor to Teach Color Management at UCLA

Andrew Behla, Behla Design and Consulting, has time to talk about teaching color management at UCLA but only as he’s driving to meet with a client. Not surprisingly, the connection from his cellular phone is broken as he drives through a tunnel. But the conversation resumes, and without missing a beat he picks up where he left off—talking about teaching color management. When it comes to teaching color management, he is satisfied when he is able to teach his students to see the big picture of the technology, break down their initial fear of it, and get them to use it in their workflow.

Behla’s students comprise of beginners and professionals, who need a touchup course on color management with ICC profiling. “The gamut ranges from photographers, fine artists who want to print their own editions, and graphic designers to newspaper, magazine, and other color-intensive professionals” he explains. At the moment, his courses concentrate on desktop ICC profiling software. This allows the photographers and graphic artists to learn an application that they can use to print their work at home. The high-end users can gain knowledge about profiling their printers for soft proofs, which show them how large format printers and presses will produce their images. He recommends advanced levels of ICC profiling for the professionals, but desktop applications are a good place to start. One of the applications he teaches is MonacoEZcolor.

His color management courses at UCLA take place over two weekends and are four hours long. The first weekend is a “resource guide for people just starting out,” focusing on color theory. The students work with ICC compatible applications such as QuarkXPress and Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to get an understanding of the basics of color management. The second weekend puts theory into practice, as the students learn how to calibrate the devices, create profiles, and embed profiles using Photoshop and other ICC-compatible applications. In addition, the students look at various targets, e.g., IT8, 35mm film, and negative film targets—determining which type is most appropriate for the work they’re doing.

How did Behla discover MonacoEZcolor? “I found out about Monaco EZcolor by students who took another course and bought the package,” he says. I went over to their house to help them with the calibration and in a way they really didn’t need me. That’s when I thought about incorporating it into the workshop.”

Behla’s first question for his students when introducing the concept of color management is, “How many of you have printed something out, looked at the monitor to get a print, and it looks nothing like you expected?” Of course everyone raises his or her hand, he claims. And he goes on to ask the rhetorical question: it’s pretty frustrating, isn’t it? Again hands rise. “You could be saving a ton of money if you have a calibrated workflow, where your monitor is giving you an accurate indication of how your print is going to look. You can save ink, paper, and time,” he tells his students.

A well-oiled workflow achieves quicker results, allowing a user to spend more time on his or her creative work, rather than going the trial and error route. The point Behla makes is that designers and other creative pros are freed up to do their creative business. It’s a time issue. He raises the point of a prepress professional trying to simulate a match print when instead he could have a purely digitally profiled workflow with a simulated “match print” on his desktop. This allows the user to utilize the digital workflow as his contact proof versus getting film and having a match print made.

Behla was hard pressed to pinpoint the time a user could save using a workflow with ICC profiles, but he estimates that a color-managed workflow with ICC profiles will produce a desired print on the first or second try. A workflow without ICC profiles may take a user five tries or more. Whereas with the monitor and printer calibrated, the user won’t attempt the final print until she’s satisfied with the image on the screen. “It’s not a stab in the dark, because you’re making your decisions based on what you see on the monitor. You may spend more time editing the image digitally, but you’re not wasting valuable paper to get it right,” explains Behla.

Profiling his devices with MonacoEZcolor is simple, a benefit of the product that Behla appreciates. Before the profiling process begins, any color management programs in all the devices must be disabled.

The process begins with profiling the monitor. For greatest accuracy, he tells his students to calibrate their monitor with MonacoSENSOR, Monaco Systems’ colorimeter, which is objective and eliminates inaccuracy due to variables such as lighting or human error.

The students can profile their scanner and printer in the same session, or they can do it separately. First they print a color patch on an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper from the MonacoEZcolor software and then attach an IT8 target, supplied by Monaco Systems, below the color patch. (The IT8 target ensures that all devices perform accurately as measurement devices; and the color patch records the color data to be measured.) They scan the IT8 target and color patch to profile their scanner and printer, using MonacoEZcolor’s intuitive user interface. However, if they choose to profile only one device, such as the printer, the software will guide them through the process. If they have to change the paper or ink in their printer, the printer can be re-profile within a matter of minutes.

When Behla suggests to his students that they buy MonacoEZcolor, he lists a number of reasons. The first, and probably most important, one is that the MonacoEZcolor is a complete package. Unlike some profiling solutions, MonacoEZcolor allows the user to profile the scanner, monitor, and printer.

He also notes the interface, which is user friendly, looks nice, and guides the user through the process like a wizard. “That means you don’t have to put your nose into a book,” he enthuses. “It’s all on screen—I like that a lot.”

The fact that the user can edit the profiles is also a big advantage, according to Behla. Finally, he is impressed by the fact that Monaco System has been in the industry since ICC profiling was introduced. That carries a great deal of weight for someone who specializes in color management.

When Andrew Behla says he wears many hats, he’s not stretching the truth. In addition to teaching classes at UCLA and Santa Monica College, he performs graphic arts design work for other companies. He trains employees on Photoshop, digital fine art printmaking and color management, and guides his clients through setting up their color management workflow. He enjoys this aspect of his role as color management expert, but he also gains as much pleasure out of teaching college students the art of color management, whether it is Photoshop, ICC profiling, or both. Behla not only teaches color management—he praises its glory, showing and telling students how important ICC profiling is in the workflow.