HP Color LaserJet 4550 printer family - Software Technical Reference

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HP Color LaserJet 4550 Software Technical Reference 212
picture (raster) data such as scanned images and TIFF files. Adobe Photoshop, for example, being a raster
image editor, is not on the list of applications that support the Automatic PANTONE®* calibration feature.
The printer specific PANTONE®* palettes are available on the HP web site and on the driver CD-ROM 1 in the
PANTONE directory. The directory includes application specific palettes as well as a specific name-to-printer
CMYK color tables for your printer (LUTTXT directory). Also available are tiff (Tifchart) and eps (EPSchart) files
that can be printed to create color charts of the PANTONE®* calibrated printer colors. The files are named
HP4550{X}.{ext} where the X is "C" for a CMYK PS palette and an "R" for an RGB PCL palette. The {ext} is the
file extension indicating the type of file as explained below in the description for each application.
You must choose the correct palette and color chart based on the print driver you is using. The CMYK palettes
can only be used with the PS driver. The CMYK palettes are optimized for the default setting (FAST CMYK
Inkset) of the printer. The RGB palettes work best with the PCL (5 or 6) driver. The RGB palettes are optimized
for the sRGB default (automatic) ColorSmart II setting. They can be used in many applications with the PS driver,
but will produce unpredictable results with some software that does not send RGB data through PS.
Any color management software such as ICM or ColorSync must be turned off when printing PANTONE®* Colors
specified as CMYK or sRGB values. These color conversions will change the colors sent to the printer and
reduce the accuracy of the PANTONE®* color simulation.
To disable Color Management:
• Windows 98 and Windows 2000: ICM-2 - make sure that no color profiles are associated with the printer.
This is found under the color management tab of the print properties dialog box.
• Windows NT® 4.0 - There is no system color management and nothing to disable.
• Windows 95: ICM-1 - The printer installation process must set up a profile for use in ICM-1. The HP4550
installation processes do not do this, so color management will not be enabled.
• Macintosh: ColorSync - From the Chooser, disable ColorSync Matching.
2.3 LOADING CUSTOM PANTONE®* PALETTES IN APPLICATIONS
To use the palettes, load the printer PANTONE®* palette for your application, as explained later in this document.
Each palette is specifically designed for the application/printer combination. Because each palette is unique, the
palette must be loaded into the application that you are using to create documents with HP4550 calibrated
PANTONE®* colors.
ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR
Adobe Illustrator loads color palettes through the Open command from the File menu. Once opened, the colors
are available in the Custom Colors box.
The color palette for Adobe Illustrator is stored in the Applicat\ADOBE\ILLUSTRA folder. The palette file,
HP4550C.ai for PS or HP4550R.ai for PCL, should be copied to the folder where other Illustrator files are stored
on your hard disk before continuing.
Adobe Illustrator 8, 7, 6 and 5.5
To open a color palette in Illustrator 8, 7, 6.0.1 and 5.5
1. Start Illustrator.
2. From the File menu, choose Import Styles.
3. Select the HP4550 color palette.