Export Show ICC Profile from HP

[Paul_DS256]

Lightroom Version Number

LR Classic 9.4

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I just exported a JPG. I selected sRGB as the output profile. When I check the JPG using EXIFTOOLGUI, I noticed the ICC information listed Linotroic for the profile name and HP as the origin (see below). I don't understand the Linotronic/HP reference since I use a Dell computer and Epson scanner and printer. Where does Linotronic/HP come into the equation? Thanks

 

[clee01l]

SRGB was developed by HP. Linotronic is a type that probably relates to to the old Linotronic printers


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[johnrellis]

In an ICC profile, the ProfileCMMType specifies the preferred "color management module" to be used with that profile. A CMM is a software component that translates the color numbers in photos to the colors displayed on devices, using the ICC profile. The key issue CMMs address is how to deal with colors in the images that can't be reproduced on the device. Well-known CMMs include Apple ColorSync, Adobe CMM, and Little CMS.

As Cletus mentioned, Linotronic made high-end laser printers and had the first commercial-quality Postscript printer in the 1980s. So it makes sense that Linotronic had its own CMM. I googled unsuccessfully for a quite a while trying to discover why many (most? all?) sRGB profiles list Linotronic as their preferred CMM. It may be just an accident -- the HP designers of sRGB had to put something in that field, and they used Linotronic printers internally?

 

[Conrad Chavez]

I might have another angle to this regarding Linotype, the company that made Linotronic Adobe PostScript imagesetters. I did a little more Googling based on "Linotype" and also "Linotype-Hell". Because in 1990 Linotype merged with Hell Graphics AG of Germany, which pioneered color scanners. All this high-end color hardware in one place got Linotype-Hell AG deeply involved with color management and color science.

A color management system uses a color management method (CMM). There are only a few CMMs that have ever been implemented. Apple has one (ColorSync), Adobe has one (Adobe Color Engine or ACE), and you can switch between them in Mac Photoshop Color Settings if you want. A CMM was developed by…Linotype-Hell, called Linocolor and it looks like they also made application software by that name. One search result said Microsoft chose Linocolor as its Windows CMM in 1999, no idea if that’s still true.

That is where the trail goes dead for me. I know sRGB was developed around 1996 by a consortium of companies including HP, but I don't know if the color group at Linotype-Hell had any role in that, why the CMM in sRGB is called Linotronic rather than Linocolor, or what happened to Linocolor since you don’t hear about it today. But I am guessing that they’re related, only because I can’t think of another reason why the name Linotronic would end up in a CMM. Was it another name for Linocolor? Did somebody at HP type “Linotronic” into that field when they should have typed in “Linocolor”?

...the HP designers of sRGB had to put something in that field, and they used Linotronic printers internally?

The thing about Linotronic is that as far as I know, they did not make printers that actually printed in color, and their printers were large floor-standing units, not desktop printers. What you would get out of a Linotronic were four CMYK separations halftoned in black, which would be handed over to a prepress department who would convert those into printing plates. So the big Linotronic was purpose-built to create intermediate output that was always destined for a printing press. It was the kind of big, specialized, expensive-to-run printer you would only find in a central corporate printing department or out at a prepress service provider, not the kind of printer that would be on a table in an office.

 

[Paul_DS256]

Thanks all for the insights and history.