The Color Partnership announces OptiCal Monitor Calibration for Windows 95 and Windows NT workstations.

DEL MAR, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 18, 1997--The Color Partnership(TM) today announced OptiCal(TM) Monitor Calibration for Windows workstations.

OptiCal enables users to calibrate their monitors, automatically set or manually adjust their monitors to a specific target curve and color temperature and then match other monitors to the original monitor, allowing accurate, consistent display throughout the production environment, on- and off-site. OptiCal calibration targets include Cineon for film; NTSC, PAL, and SECAM for broadcast video. Users can also use predetermined, or create custom, curves and color temperatures.

OptiCal includes such notable features as: generation of industry standard ICC profiles; easy-to-use interface; instrument measurement of black point and contrast settings for more accurate and objective calibration; multiple control points on the gamma curves for more precise gamma corrections; the OptiMate II -- a fast and accurate monitor reading device; an information dialog for tracking past calibrations; and a relative colorimeter dialog which uses the OptiMate II to find values of colors on screen.

"OptiCal is the first monitor calibration tool available to users of the Windows operating system," said Sara Akerman, director of product marketing at The Color Partnership. "It's the first hardware and software solution that allows users to actually change the appearance of their monitor." The first video cards to be supported by OptiCal for Windows are Number Nine(TM) Imagine(TM) and Matrox(TM) Millenium(TM).

"Accurate color is tremendously critical to the modern publishing environment, and we are excited that The Color Partnership is bringing monitor calibration to the Intel Platform," said Anand Chandrasekher, general manager of Intel's Workstation Products Division. "OptiCal 2.0 for NT now enables users of the Intel platform to trust the color they see on their screens, an important step in color-accurate workflow."

OptiCal was originally released by The Color Partnership in June 1996 for Macintosh and SGI platforms as a monitor calibration and ICC profiling tool. With the addition of the Windows platform, OptiCal can run on all the workstations in a production environment -- whether Macintosh, SGI or Windows -- in-house and off-site, allowing accurate monitor matching throughout.

"Number Nine was the world's first graphics board company to offer a true color board for the PC. Today, we are considered the leading manufacturer of high-performance, true color graphics accelerators for content creators. We understand the importance of making graphics appear faster on the screen, but equally important, is that the color be accurate," said Michael Romanies, vice president of marketing for Number Nine. "The people at The Color Partnership understand the science of color and how to make sure the color on the screen is what the designer intended. Number Nine has worked with the engineers at The Color Partnership to make sure that this was the case and are proud that the Imagine 128 Series 2 is the first graphics accelerator on the PC platform to be supported by OptiCal."

On-Screen Colorimeter

OptiCal provides an on-screen colorimeter. The On-Screen Colorimeter displays colors, including those from the common Microsoft ChooseColor dialog, and uses the OptiMate II Monitor Sensor to read those colors. The color values are displayed in CIExyY, CIELab, RGB, XYZ, Foot-Lamberts, and Kelvin. This information can be used to verify that the white points, therefore color temperatures, of two, or multiple monitors match by reading white patches on all monitors involved in the work flow.

Multiple Control Points

OptiCal has multiple control points on the gamma curves for more precise manual curve adjustment. The software allows users to select 3, 5, or 11 control points for each of the red, green, and blue curves. Users can adjust the curves individually or collectively to manually change the appearance of the monitor to match printed output. These custom curves can be saved and used as target curves for other systems running OptiCal, on Macintosh, Windows 95(TM), Windows NT(TM), and SGI platforms.

OptiMate II

OptiCal for Windows ships with the new Monitor Calibrator from Minolta. This previously unreleased instrument offers more high speed, repeatable and accurate monitor readings.

OptiCal for Windows will be available from The Color Partnership in August 1997 for a suggested retail price of U.S.$695. A demonstration version of OptiCal for Windows is available for download at www.colorpar.com .

The Color Partnership is a privately held company located at 12865 Pointe Del Mar #160, Del Mar, California 92014 U.S.A.. Telephone [phone]. Fax [phone] , e-mail [e-mail] . -0- The Color Partnership, TCP, OptiCal and OptiMate are trademarks of The Color Partnership. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies.

CONTACT: Sara Akerman, 619/259-8688 x105

[e-mail]