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The AVA CMS Controller is a separate application that controls the colour management for all the various AVA Applications. It is where you set ICC profiles for your display, printer and proof. It's also where you control how these profiles behave, set the Illuminate you will work to and where you can adjust the Viewing Conditions. |
The CMS Controller is divided into 5 sections or tabs, to learn what each section does and how to use them, click though the tabs below.
Profiles
The Profile tab is used to set the monitor and printer and profiles which will be used for colour matching in AVA.
To set the profiles, you can either drag and drop the requited ICC profile from the Finder or click the Printer / Monitor profile button to select a profile (we can also use .icm files).
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Printer profiles can be RGB or CMYK, made by AVA or a third party software. The type of profile will determine the file type of the output file. N-channel profiles cannot be used as printer profiles. Monitor profile will be set automatically after running a Monitor Calibration with AVA's Monitor Calibration software. If you are using third party software to profile your screens, then you may need to set this profile manually using the CMS Controller. |
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The Reveal In Finder button is use if some had set a profile and you want to know where it is stored in the Finder.
Viewing Conditions
The Viewing Conditions tab enables you to alter what you see on the screen to compensate for room lighting conditions, type of display or illuminate you wish to calibrate for, i.e. lighting you will view colour critical prints.
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Colour Balance - Controls shift the overall balance of the screen in the direction indicated, so if the screen colours are too blue, the Yellower-Bluer slider would be moved towards yellow to correct this. The a: and b: numbers indicate the current settings of the sliders. 0.000 is default, if you have good / correct room lighting the screen will be a good simulation of the print at this setting. Adjusting the Colour balance will have no effect on the print, unless you are printing an image that is not tagged with a icc profile. Only small adjustments should be make, if you are having to make esteem changes to the sliders it is likely there are other issues with your setup. Adjustment to these sliders are show in real time. |
Use Printer, This check box shifts the white point of the monitor profile to match the printer’s, it could be used if you are printing an image that is not tagged with an ICC profile and you want blank areas to print blank. Generally we do not advise to check this option and would suggest tagging the images with a profile instead. Checking this option disables the Colour Balance.
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Brightness and contrast - The brightness slider adds or subtracts white from the screen. As the slider is moved down, the screen colours become darker and cleaner. If the slider is moved up, the screen colours become greyer, as if viewed through a mist. If you have a matt screen set this to 0.030 (which is the default). If you have a gloss screen a setting of 0.000 will give you a better simulation on the to screen to print out. We would recommend leaving the Contrast slider at 1.000. |
Reset - sets the controls back to their default settings.
TIP: If you are tweaking the Colour Balance, do this with a variety of designs and colours.
Lighting conditions - D65/2˚ is the default Illuminate (lighting condition) used in AVA, as this is typically the Illuminate used for most decorative industries. It is however possible to set a different global lighting environment for working in AVA, on your monitors and printers. The global lighting environment settings are located in the AVA CMS Controller and you can choose from seven different lighting conditions: |
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• A - represents typical domestic tungsten-filament lighting / incandescent
• D50 - Daylight 5000K (represents natural daylight, horizon light – more yellow than D65)
• D65 - Daylight 6500K (represents natural daylight, noon daylight – more blue than D50)
• F2 - CWF, Cool White Fluorescent (generic fluorescent lighting which may be more accurate in general office conditions)
• F7 - Fluorescent D65 daylight simulator
• F12 - Fluorescent TL83, Ultralume 30 (specific store lighting)
• F11 - Fluorescent TL84, Ultralume 40
Note
If you change the Illuminate set you need to rebuild your printer profile(s) and redo the screen calibration, as this is not an instant switch.
Soft Proof
In the Soft Proof tab, you can set a third-party profile such as your production gamut or your RIP application's proofing profile, by ticking this option and dragging the profile into this box. This profile can be RGB, CMYK or N-Channel.
| When a profile is set in here and Use Soft Proof is checked, your gamut warnings will be specific to this profile, not the printer profile. Your print output can be affected as this proof profile will also be used to calculate the AVA Printing White, however it will not clip the colour gamut of the outputted print file (just shift the white point). |  |
Checking the Whitepoint option means you can choose a different white point than that of the profile by dragging a colour to the box next to this option, however we don’t think this will necessary for most workflows.
DeleteAdvanced
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In the Advanced tab you get set a different Monitor white by dragging the colour required to the box next to the check box and checking the option ‘Set Monitor White’. This option will be required if you have a profile made on a darker substrate, typically you would set a colour with the following LAB values as the Monitor white: L95, a0, b0 (the values will change slightly depending on the brightness of your display). This option does not affect the print (unless you have an image that is not tagged with an ICC profile) so it can be left on for other profiles on brighter substrates. You can also override the Printer White in the same way. This could be used if your substrate is set to a reading of you production media and you are printing on this same media but do not want any tone to appear in areas you expect to be blank. This option does affect the print output. In this case you would simply use the reading of the substrate as the 'Printing White'. |
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Output Rendering Intent
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This can be set to Relative or Absolute Colourimetric. This setting changes the rendering intent of the profile tagged in the print output file. |
Absolute Colourimetric: Should be used if you are using an AVA profile made using the macOS printer driver or going through any of the AVA Drivers to the AVA Digital Print RIP. This is the default settings and is what we have used in the past.
Relative Colourimetric: Could be used if you are using a third-party profile and printing to a third-party RIP. It should ensure that blank areas print blank when printing through a third-party RIP with an interchange profile set as the printer profile and a proofing profile from the RIP set in Soft Proofing. The substrate in AVA would need to be set to ‘AVA Printing White to ensure blank areas print without any unwanted dots.
DeleteGamut Limit
AVA has the ability to limit the output gamut of a printer by using a second device profile. The second profile can be set in this tab by dragging the ICC profile to the profile box or clicking the 'Proofing Profile' button to select the profile, the check 'Use Proofing Profile' to activate this.
Warning
However use of this setting is discouraged as it harms colour accuracy. We would suggest using the Soft Proof profile instead, this option will remain in the software for customers who used it and need to reprint legacy file that used this.
Sharing the CMS settings
When you work within a studio, it is important that everybody is using the same settings. Otherwise, you may experience colour differences between two different systems. Sharing all of the settings from the AVA CMS Controller is incredibly easy when you use a Palette. To create a palette to save and share setting from one system to another follow these steps:
1. Open an existing Palette or create a new one by going to File Menu > New > Palette.
2. Open the Overprint Inspector from the AVA Menu > Inspectors.
3. Double click on the Palette Handler and untick CMS Monitor Profile and close the window.
4. Now drag the Palette Handler from the Overprint Inspector Window to the Palette.
5. Save the Palette to a folder others can access it.
6. From another system you can then open the palette and click the action to get the same profile and settings.
Coming soon in AVA 5.9
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The AVA CMS Controller is a separate application that controls the colour management for all the various AVA Applications. It is where you set ICC profiles for your display, printer and proof. It's also where you control how these profiles behave, set the illuminate you will work to and where you can adjust the Viewing Conditions. |
The CMS Controller is divided into 5 sections or tabs, to learn what each section does and how to use them, click though the tabs below.
Profiles
The Profile tab is used to set the monitor and printer and profiles which will be used for colour matching in AVA.
To set the profiles, you can either drag and drop the requited ICC profile from the Finder or click the Printer / Monitor profile button to select a profile (we can also use .icm files).
|
Output profiles can be RGB or CMYK, made by AVA or a third party software. The type of profile will determine the file type of the output file. Monitor profile will be set automatically after running a Monitor Calibration with AVA's Monitor Calibration software. If you are using third party software to profile your screens, then you may need to set this profile manually using the CMS Controller. |
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Set Print Mode
From the File menu of the CMS there are now a set of printing modes to help you set up the CMS according to your printing method.
Set Print Factory Mode (⌘P)
Choosing this option automatically sets up various CMS settings for Printing to PrintFactory including:
• Setting the appropriate AVA Interchange profile (depending on your illuminate in Viewing Conditions),
• Sets the Output Rendering Intent to Absolute.
• Shows the Soft Proof tab so you can set the relevant profile to use.
Set Relative Tiff Mode (⌘T)
Choosing this option automatically sets up various CMS settings for Printing to a third party rip including:
• Setting the appropriate AVA Interchange profile (depending on your illuminate in Viewing Conditions),
• Sets the Output Rendering Intent to Relative.
• Shows the Soft Proof tab so you can set the relevant profile to use.
Set AVA Digital Print Mode (⌘R)
Choosing this option automatically sets up various CMS settings for Printing to the AVA Digital Print Rip including:
• Set your printer profile
• Sets the Output Rendering Intent to Absolute.
• Turns off the Soft Proof profile
The Reveal In Finder button is used if someone had set a profile and you want to know where it is stored in the Finder.
DeleteViewing Conditions
The Viewing Conditions tab enables you to alter what you see on the screen to compensate for room lighting conditions, type of display or illuminate you wish to calibrate for, i.e. lighting you will view colour critical prints.
|
Colour Balance - Controls shift the overall balance of the screen in the direction indicated, so if the screen colours are too blue, the Yellower-Bluer slider would be moved towards yellow to correct this. The a: and b: numbers indicate the current settings of the sliders. 0.000 is default, if you have good / correct room lighting the screen will be a good simulation of the print at this setting. Adjusting the Colour balance will have no effect on the print, unless you are printing an image that is not tagged with a icc profile. Only small adjustments should be make, if you are having to make esteem changes to the sliders it is likely there are other issues with your setup. Adjustment to these sliders are show in real time. |
Use Printer, This check box shifts the white point of the monitor profile to match the printer’s, it could be used if you are printing an image that is not tagged with an ICC profile and you want blank areas to print blank. Generally we do not advise to check this option and would suggest tagging the images with a profile instead. Checking this option disables the Colour Balance.
|
Brightness and contrast - The brightness slider adds or subtracts white from the screen. As the slider is moved down, the screen colours become darker and cleaner. If the slider is moved up, the screen colours become greyer, as if viewed through a mist. If you have a matt screen set this to 0.030 (which is the default). If you have a gloss screen a setting of 0.000 will give you a better simulation on the to screen to print out. We would recommend leaving the Contrast slider at 1.000. |
Reset - sets the controls back to their default settings.
TIP: If you are tweaking the Colour Balance, do this with a variety of designs and colours.
Lighting conditions - D65/2˚ is the default Illuminate (lighting condition) used in AVA, as this is typically the illuminate used for most decorative industries. It is however possible to set a different global lighting environment for working in AVA, on your monitors and printers. The global lighting environment settings are located in the AVA CMS Controller and you can choose from seven different lighting conditions: |
|
• A - represents typical domestic tungsten-filament lighting / incandescent
• D50 - Daylight 5000K (represents natural daylight, horizon light – more yellow than D65)
• D65 - Daylight 6500K (represents natural daylight, noon daylight – more blue than D50)
• F2 - CWF, Cool White Fluorescent (generic fluorescent lighting which may be more accurate in general office conditions)
• F7 - Fluorescent D65 daylight simulator
• F12 - Fluorescent TL83, Ultralume 30 (specific store lighting)
• F11 - Fluorescent TL84, Ultralume 40
Note:
If you change the Illuminate set you need to rebuild your printer profile(s) and redo the screen calibration, as this is not an instant switch.
Softproof
In the Soft Proof tab, you can set a third-party profile such as your production gamut or your RIP application's proofing profile, by ticking this option and dragging the profile into this box. This profile can be RGB, CMYK or N-Channel.
| When a profile is set in here and Use Other Profile is checked, your gamut warnings will be specific to this profile, not the Output Profile. Your print output can be affected as this proof profile will be used to calculate the AVA Printing White, it will not however clip the colour gamut of the outputted print file (just shift the white point). If you are using the Print Factory workflow, this is where you would put your profile. |  |
Checking the Whitepoint option means you can choose a different white point than that of the profile by dragging a colour to the box next to this option, however we don’t think this will necessary for most workflows.
DeleteAdvanced
In the Advanced tab you get set a different Monitor white by dragging the colour required to the box next to the checkbox and checking the option ‘Set Monitor White’. This option will be required if you have a profile made on a darker substrate, typically you would set a colour with LAB values close to monitor the monitor's white point, such as : L95, a0, b0. This option does not affect the print (unless you have an image that is not tagged with an ICC profile) so it can be left on for other profiles on brighter substrates.
You can also override the Printer White in the same way. This could be used if your substrate is set to a reading of you production media and you are printing on this same media but do not want any tone to appear in areas you expect to be blank. This option does affect the print output. In this case you would simply use the reading of the substrate as the 'Printing White'.
Output Rendering Intent
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This can be set to Relative or Absolute Colourimetric. This setting changes the rendering intent of the profile tagged in the print output file. |
Absolute Colourimetric: Should be used if you are using an AVA profile made using the macOS printer driver or going through any of the AVA Drivers to the AVA Digital Print RIP. This is the default settings and is what we have used in the past.
Relative Colourimetric: Could be used if you are using a third-party profile and printing to a third-party RIP. It should ensure that blank areas print blank when printing through a third-party RIP with an interchange profile set as the printer profile and a proofing profile from the RIP set in Soft Proofing. The substrate in AVA would need to be set to ‘AVA Printing White to ensure blank areas print without any unwanted dots.
DeleteGamut Limit
AVA has the ability to limit the output gamut of a printer by using a second device profile. The second profile can be set in this tab by dragging the ICC profile to the profile box or clicking the 'Proofing Profile' button to select the profile, the check 'Use Proofing Profile' to activate this.
Warning
However use of this setting is discouraged as it harms colour accuracy. We would suggest using the Soft Proof profile instead, this option will remain in the software for customers who used it and need to reprint legacy file that used this.