Link-o-lator FAQ's

How do the curves affect UCR/GRC and/or Grey balance?
The curves do not affect UCR or GCR, grey balance, or total ink coverage at all.

Link-o-lator only changes the curves of pure channels of color, and does not affect the black generation, total ink coverage, and grey balance of a profile or link.To affect these, you need to return to your profiling software and change the settings there.

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How do I change my UCR/GCR or Total Ink Coverage?
We feel that customers have spend a significant sum of money to purchase what they feel is the finest color profiling software, and that we should respect the technologies and sciences used by those vendors. If you need to adjust UCR or GCR, you must go back to your profiling application, and correct it in the profile.

Also, any edits you make to a profile with a profile editor will be respected by Link-o-lator as well.

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The software won't run:
First, Link-o-lator is a Macintosh only program. Make sure you are using a computer that conforms to the minimum system requirements.

Second, make sure that the Link-o-lator dongle is attached to an available USB port on your Macintosh. Link-o-lator will run, but will not make links without a dongle.

Lastly, in OS 9, assign more memory to Link-o-lator — especially if you are making maxi-channel profiles.

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Software crashes when making a maxi-channel link:
Maxi-Channel links grow in size and consume RAM exponentially with each channel added. We have written code that can make HUGE profiles, but if you decide to do so, you must allocate more RAM to Link-o-lator.

You can also choose to build a link in 8-bit mode, and with a smaller matrix. This will both use less RAM in the link generation phase, and the link will take up less space on the disk.

Also, while we haven’t run into this problem yet, it is possible that certain RIPS may not accept Device Links if they are too large, so you may be required to build Maxi-Channel profiles in 8-bit.

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I build a Link and use it, but the results don't match what Adobe Photoshop does with the same profiles:
First, that should be expected. And we would also expect that due to the improved color fidelity normally yeilded by a Device Link, that the link results would be better.

However, if you want to achieve results as similar to Photoshop as possible, make sure that you are using the same CMM in Photoshop and in Link-o-lator. And remember, because Adobe embeds it’s color management engine into Photoshop, Link-o-lator can’t access it - and that can cause a color difference.

Secondly, our black point compensation technologies are different from Adobe’s, so if you select that option, you should expect different results. (note: Ed Granger the Mad Color Scientist, ex-Kodak scientist with 900 bajillion patents and current RIT professor insists that our algorithms are absolutely the best).

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My profiles are @#$@%^ HUGE (like 194 megabytes)!
If you are making Maxi-Channel profiles — well — they will do that. You can set the software to use 8-bit mode, or use a smaller matrix. This will affect color accuracy, but will reduce the size of the profiles.

Also, you can reduce the size of Left Dakota MegaLinks by not embedding the source and/or destination profiles.

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When I Preserve Registration Black I see a strange result in a registration-based ramp of color - at about 95 percent.
Yeah, this is an issue we are working on, but because the odd behavior occurs at roughly 380% ink coverage, we figured it shouldn't affect very many people at all. Let us know if this is an urgent issue, and why.