I'm pleased to announce that development snapshot version 1.11.4 of LProf is now available.  This is the sixth development snapshot of the work that has been underway since LProf became a SourceForge project.  Please see the LProf SourceForge home page at http://lprof.sourceforge.net/ for details.

This is a development snap shot of what will become version 1.12 when it is stable.  Although testing by the development team indicates that this snapshot appears to be stable it is none the less a development release and as such it should not be considered a stable release.  It has not been extensively tested and on some platforms has had very little testing and may have significant unknown bugs.  This is being made available so that users can test the new release to report problems and make suggestions for improvements.

Significant changes since the last development snapshot include:

1. The LProf user interface is now translatable and the following translations are included in this release:

French Russian
Norwegian
German

Several other translations are in the pipeline. As these are completed additional language only releases (language packs) will be made available along with installation instructions.

The LProf project is looking for volunteers to do translations to other languages. If you would like to assist with this effort please feel free to contact anyone on the LProf development team.

2. For the first time since version 1.09 LProf now has a Windows installation binary. LProf now has a volunteer who has taken responsibility for the Windows port.  Previously none of the LProf developers were Windows users and we needed someone who would do the Windows port justice.  It took a while to find a volunteer but Joe Pizzi stepped forward and is highly qualified. This is the first release that will show case his hard work.

This Windows port has not been extensively tested and may have significant unknown problems. Windows users are encouraged to test this release and to report any problems to the LProf team.

3. The Mac build scripts have been updated and one Mac user has tested the build and reported that it works. This will build a native (non-Fink) executable for the Mac. The Mac port has not been extensively tested (even less than the Windows port) and may have significant unknown problems. Mac users are invited to give it a try and to report results to the LProf team.

4. Improved pick template placement code. In previous versions of LProf the pick template placement code would sometimes exhibit unpredictable behavior. In addition, it would sometimes place the hot zones in slightly different locations than in the UI when pulling the color data from the target image. These problems have now been fixed.

5. LProf now has a work around that will allow it to build on systems with QT 3.3.5 or 3.3.6 installed.

6. The proofing code has been improved and now correctly performs color space transformations on the actual high bit depth image data rather than on the 8 bits/channel display image data.

7. The spline regression algorithm has been upgraded to produce smoother Color Look Up Table (CLUT) curves.

8. Most of the dialogs have been reworked to make them smaller, eliminate un-needed controls and to improve usability. Among these changes LProf will now remember the sizes of windows and dialogs, if these are resized, both during execution and when the application is restarted.

9. LProf would sometimes blow up when opening profiles that were not ICC compliant. It now detects many of these non-conforming profiles and by passes them.

10. LProf now has a feature that will perform cross validation on the regression model to estimate how well the resulting profiles will work in real world conditions. This will assist users with tuning the regression parameters used for creating input device profiles.

11. LProf now uses CIE based weighting for color patches in the regression model which gives higher weight to gray patches for improved neutrality in the critical gray and near gray region.

12. Numerous other smaller bug fixes, enhancements and code cleans ups.

Please feel free to download, build, install and test this development snapshot.  User feedback is very much appreciated and any reported problems will receive prompt attention from the LProf development team.  

In addition, the LProf project could use your help in other ways and we are looking for volunteers to handle various tasks.   Many of the things that need to be done are non-technical. Therefore even those that do not have a technical back ground can contribute.  Doing translations and working on documentation are examples of things that are not technical that need to be done. Please contact me if you would like to get involved in this effort in any way.

Hal V. Engel