Barco Creator was an image manipulation program targeted at the repro and print shop markets. It was developed by Barco Creative Systems a division of the Barco Group and first shown as a prototype at Parigraph in April 1988, then later at Ipex 88"Ipex series tracks image manipulation. (highlights of the 1998 Ipex series of international shows)." Graphic Arts Monthly. Reed Business Information, Inc. (US). 1998. Retrieved November 26, 2008 from HighBeam Research: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-21201447.html ). Barco Creative Systems together with D.I.S.C. and Aesthedes merged into Barco Graphics. It ran on several generations of

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and sof ...

computers till the late 1990s. Barco Graphics (later Esko) ColorTone for

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Win ...

is considered its successor.

History

Until the late 1980s digital retouching required specialized hardware such as the

Quantel Quantel was a company based in the United Kingdom and founded in 1973 that designed and manufactured digital production equipment for the broadcast television, video production and motion picture industries. They were headquartered in Newbury, ...

Paintbox. Barco Creator was one of the first products to run on off-the-shelf SGI workstations instead. Originally targeted at the "high end", Creator evolved into a slightly more mid-market program with the "personal"-edition running on the Indy. Still the price was in the $10k to $100k range depending on options, and additional hardware was sometimes needed to speed up specific operations. While Creator could rely on superior features and performance to justify its price through the mid-1990s, as time progressed each new

Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...

version made the Barco package harder to sell. After the release of version 7.1 in late 1997 there were few new sales. In the end Creator was abandoned, like many of its contemporaries; Dalim Tango, Linotype-Hell DaVinci and Alias Eclipse. Its lineal successor, known as Esko ColorTone was discontinued in 2013.

Features

Software modules

Creator was set up to be a modular system, tailored to the specific needs of each "shop" or user. The base for version 7.0 was the "CT-Brix"

software library In computer science, a library is a collection of non-volatile resources used by computer programs, often for software development. These may include configuration data, documentation, help data, message templates, pre-written code and sub ...

(colour selection, basic

compositing Compositing is the process or technique of combining visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live action, Live-action shooting for compositing is ...

, selection, transformation,

shape A shape or figure is a graphical representation of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, texture, or material type. A plane shape or plane figure is constrained to lie ...

s, basic

colour correction Color correction is a process used in stage lighting, photography, television, cinematography, and other disciplines, which uses color gels, or filters, to alter the overall color of the light. Typically the light color is measured on a scale kno ...

densitometer A densitometer is a device that measures the degree of darkness (the optical density) of a photographic or semitransparent material or of a reflecting surface. The densitometer is basically a light source aimed at a photoelectric cell. It determ ...

, layers etc.), also featured in other Barco Graphics CT (continuous tone) products, e.g. ColorTone. On top of this Creator added the "Creative functions" libraries (special effect filters;

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

emboss EMBOSS is a free open source software analysis package developed for the needs of the molecular biology and bioinformatics user community. The software automatically copes with data in a variety of formats and even allows transparent retrieval o ...

, b/w, warp etc.), "basic brush" module (size, thickness, shapes, styles, pressure sensitivity), "advanced brush" module (brush profiles,

texture Texture may refer to: Science and technology * Surface texture, the texture means smoothness, roughness, or bumpiness of the surface of an object * Texture (roads), road surface characteristics with waves shorter than road roughness * Texture ...

s), "basic colour correction" module (gradation correction, pick mixer, plane mixer, colour mixer), "advanced colour correction" module (chain all of the basic correction tools, batch corrections, instant preview) and finally the "auto mask" module. Optional software modules included "PrintView" (preview a given

CMYK The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refers ...

printing process), "BlackSmith" (modify CMYK files to reduce ink usage, better print quality) and "InkSwitch" (convert CMYK into special ink separations for packaging printing). Barco ColorTone adds an "Image quality estimator" module (evaluate if an image is printable according to certain quality parameters), but lacks several of the other Creator modules. Using the "Brix Organizer" software it was possible to group CT-Brix modules into "sessions" customised for the current workflow. One could for example disable both colour correction and the creative functions/filters, giving the operator an interface more focused on painting.

File formats

As of Barco Creator 7 support for foreign (non-Barco) file formats depended on a dedicated software "interface". Interfaces for Creator CVW files,

TIFF Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word process ...

, PSD (no layers) and EPS/DCS were standard. Optionally one could order interfaces for Hell and Scitex and Scitex online file formats.

Output

For the earlier versions, at least, the primary output were CT

RGB The RGB color model is an additive color model in which the red, green and blue primary colors of light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three addi ...

( Scitex CT to be exposed on film recorders as LVT and Fire 1000) and CMYK formats (to

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, Hell, and

IT8 IT8 is a set of American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards for color communications and control specifications. Formerly governed by the IT8 Committee, IT8 activities were merged with those of the Committee for Graphics Arts Technolog ...

). One must keep in mind that the internet was just coming of age, and the whole prepress/magazine industry was almost exclusively based on film photographers and a film workflow.

Development

Hardware

Creator originally ran on Silicon Graphics

Power Series In mathematics, a power series (in one variable) is an infinite series of the form \sum_^\infty a_n \left(x - c\right)^n = a_0 + a_1 (x - c) + a_2 (x - c)^2 + \dots where ''an'' represents the coefficient of the ''n''th term and ''c'' is a con ...

computers with one or more processors. By 1993 "Personal Creator" was available for the

Indigo Indigo is a deep color close to the color wheel blue (a primary color in the RGB color space), as well as to some variants of ultramarine, based on the ancient dye of the same name. The word "indigo" comes from the Latin word ''indicum'', m ...

, while the "full" Power Creator ran on a Crimson. Later releases were available for the Indy, Indigo2, 02 and Octane computers. It is unknown if Creator will run on the later Octane2, Fuel and Tezro workstations with VPro graphics. Due to its

high end In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast to ...

focus Barco developed several dedicated hardware options to speed up Creator. For the Power Series and Crimson Barco originally supplied a "Colcom/ VME" colour computer board, a fast multi-dimensional interpolator. This was replaced in early 1993 with the more powerful "Chameleon" board, integrating the discrete logic of the Colcom board in a custom ASIC. Its main purpose was displaying CMYK colours on the (

) monitor quickly. After version 7.0 the Chameleon was also used for accelerating certain colour correction operations. For the release of Creator 6 Barco also added a Brush-accelerator board that made retouching with large brushes on files of several hundred megabytes possible.

Turnkey A turnkey, a turnkey project, or a turnkey operation (also spelled turn-key) is a type of project that is constructed so that it can be sold to any buyer as a completed product. This is contrasted with build to order, where the constructor builds ...

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

s were additionally supplied with a

WACOM () is a Japanese company headquartered in Kazo, Saitama, Japan, that specializes in manufacturing graphics tablets and related products. Headquarters locations The main headquarters are located in Kazo, Saitama, Japan. Its office in the USA ...

tablet, a Barco Reference Calibrator self-calibrating or Personal Calibrator monitor and SCSI

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storage, though stripped down versions were also available. Input was usually from high-end scanners: Linotype-Hell,

Crosfield Electronics Crosfield Electronics was a British electronics imaging company founded by John Crosfield (1915 - 2012) and Dennis Bent in 1947 to produce process imaging devices for the print industry. The firm was notable for its innovation in colour drum sc ...

Dainippon Screen is a Japanese semiconductor and electronics company, headquartered in Kyoto, engaged in the manufacture and sale of equipment for the manufacturing of semiconductors, flat panel displays, storage media (such as optical discs) and precision techn ...

, or ICG (Itek Color Graphics). From the Indigo/Crimson versions the Howtek D4000 ( 4000dpi)

drum scanner An image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner—is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting or an object and converts it to a digital image. Commonly used in offices are variations of the desktop ''flatbed scanner'' w ...

was usually offered as an option. Version 7 supported both the D4000 and the D7500 ( 5000dpi) scanner.

Release history

The feature set was basically frozen after Creator 7 (June 1996). The most apt comparison to the final release, featurewise, would be Adobe Photoshop 4 (November 1996).

Availability

Barco Creator was discontinued in the late 1990s, and was not picked up by Purup-Eskofot after it purchased the Graphics division of Barco. Neither Barco nor Esko have the ability to issue new licenses anymore. As Creator was only available in single nodelocked licenses, one would need to buy an original system with the license included to have a "full legal version".

References

{{Raster graphics editors Barco Graphics software Raster graphics editors IRIX software Technical communication tools