Abstract: An electronic portable document format (PDF) file contains different combinations of gradient blends between spot color and process color. Each gradient blend is represented as both rasterized bitmap and vector images. The rasterized bitmap and vector images can be used to quickly assess the capability of any digital front end (DFE) to process the color gradient blends. The PDF file contains two sets of spot color and process color blended combinations. The first set contains four types of color gradient blends: spot-to-spot, process-to-spot, spot-to-process, and process-to-process, each of which represent the intended design. The second set contains the same four types of color gradient blends, except here the CMYK colors associated with the spot colors are intentionally manipulated. By printing the PDF file using different DFEs, one may compare the output from the two sets and immediately identify any color gradient handling problem, providing a quick benchmarking tool.

Abstract: An electronic portable document format (PDF) file contains different combinations of gradient blends between spot color and process color. Each gradient blend is represented as both rasterized bitmap and vector images. The rasterized bitmap and vector images can be used to quickly assess the capability of any digital front end (DFE) to process the color gradient blends. The PDF file contains two sets of spot color and process color blended combinations. The first set contains four types of color gradient blends: spot-to-spot, process-to-spot, spot-to-process, and process-to-process, each of which represent the intended design. The second set contains the same four types of color gradient blends, except here the CMYK colors associated with the spot colors are intentionally manipulated. By printing the PDF file using different DFEs, one may compare the output from the two sets and immediately identify any color gradient handling problem, providing a quick benchmarking tool.