Print Imaging

CMYK Images Support

CMYK is a native color space for printing. Graphics Mill for .NET allows you to:

• Load CMYK images from TIFF, JPEG, PSD, etc;
• Process them without converting to RGB or any other color spaces;
• Convert RGB images into CMYK using ICC profiles (and therefore get precise color conversion);
• Split CMYK image into separate channels.
• ...and perform other operations with CMYK images.

CMYK images may contain alpha channel. This allows to blend two CMYK images without extra conversions to RGB. Graphics Mill for .NET also handles 16 bits per channel CMYK files.

Advanced Color Management

To be sure that the hardcopy image will have the same colors as the image file, you need to apply color management. Graphics Mill for .NET allows to do it as easily as possible.

Here is a brief color management features highlight:

• If the image file contains embedded color profile, Graphics Mill for .NET loads it along with pixels;
• You can change this profile or convert pixels to fit another profile;
• You can specify output color profiles for all color spaces supported by Graphics Mill for .NET: RGB, CMYK, and grayscale;
• During conversion you can specify necessary rendering intent - relative colorimetric, absolute colorimetric, perceptual, and saturation;
• When using relative colormetric, you can use the so-called "black point compensation" mode which increases the contrast of the output image;
• You can preview the result of printing on the screen by specifying two profiles for conversion: for the printer and for the monitor. This helps user to see and proof the image without long and often costly printing.

Here is an example of conversion with color management disabled and enabled:

Industry Standard File Formats

Graphics Mill for .NET can load images of various file formats, including widely used for printing JPEG, TIFF, PSD.

If you need to save the file to print it using other software, you can save it in such industry standard formats as TIFF and PDF. Of course, you can save it in other file formats as well.

Composite Print

Graphics Mill for .NET provides a number of printing features such as:

• Printing multipage TIFF files;
• Printing a collection of images:
  • Single image on each page;
  • Multiple images on each page;
• Optimization of multiple images layout on a page;
• Possibility to handle printed image physical size property:
  • Auto resizing;
  • Auto cropping;
  • Auto centering;
  • Proper handling of portrait/landscape orientation of the image;
• Footer and header captions;
• Memory-friendly implementation;
• Integration with standard .NET print dialog;
• Demo application with source code is included.

PSD Templates for Personalized Graphics

Whenever you create application which should print personalized graphics (such as business cards, ID cards, flyers, mass paper mail, etc), you encounter with a problem of creating and storing templates for personalized graphics. Advanced PSD Add-on for Graphics Mill will greatly help you with that.

This add-on enables you to process PSD files, i.e. extract separate layers and then merge them. You can extract two kind of layers - raster (common images) and text (a text string + its font and paragraph settings). When merging layers from a PSD file, you can insert your own data instead of some layers.

This way designers of templates can use familiar software - Adobe® Photoshop®. They just give some specific name to the layer which should be interpreted as a placeholder. You can write simple application (code example is enclosed) which will analyze PSD template and generate personalized image.

Examples of Usage

Graphics Mill for .NET is a highly versatile component and can be used in wide range of applications. Here are a few examples:

• Batch file processor for images;
• Image editing application;
• Web-site for ordering business cards and other print production;
• Photo printing application.