Talk:New Colours Format

Binary formats description

You can get samples of these by installing trial versions of the softwares.

Adobe Color Book (.acb)

The only addition to Ates Goral’s description is a little change at the end of the file for the CS2 and CS3 color books: these files end with a 8 bytes string saying spflspot for spot colors and spflproc for process colors.

Binary Color File (.bcf)

Most of this was found by comparing with the little documented ACF format.

Byte order is big-endian. Strings are NUL padded. Except for the Lab values, all shorts are unsigned. Character encoding is Mac Roman.

Version: 8bytes string (ACF 1.0/ACF 2.1/BCF 2.0)

Library Name: 32bytes string

Library Version: 8bytes string

Copyright: 32bytes string

About Message: 512bytes string

Names: short (1=Partial/2=Full)

Rows: short

Columns: short

Entries: short

Prefix: 12bytes string

Suffix: 4bytes string

Palette Type: short (1=Spot/2=Process/8=?/16=hifi/32=?)

4 shorts. I thought it could be some model list like in the ACF format but since every file I've analyzed has RGB and CMYK values, I don't know what are these...

• The first one is 1 for the Munsell palettes which contains XYZ values, 0 for the other ones, even for the PANTONE® Process Euro file which also has XYZ values... could be a mistake...
• For the second and the third ones (still 0 or 1), I couldn't find any relationship with anything else.
• The last one is probably Preferred Model where 1=RGB and 2=CMYK. I don't know what 8 and 16 stand for.

In version ACF 1.0, the color list starts here with <Entries>*54bytes: 3 shorts (XYZ), 4 shorts (CMYK), 3 shorts (RGB), 1 short (Type) and a 32bytes string (colour name).

In higher versions (ACF 2.1 and BCF 2.0), the palette informations goes on:

About Message extender: short. If this one is 1, it's followed by a 100bytes string which is to be added to the About Message.

HiFi Inks: short

Number of HiFi Inks: short

Lab: short. If this equals 1, colours have Lab values.

22 bytes, always 0 in all the files I've analyzed

2 bytes: 0x0168 (360) for the PANTONE® HEXACHROME files, 0 for the others

If <HiFi Inks> equals 1, here comes <Number of HiFi Inks>*54 bytes: 2*10bytes string and 1 short (should be the angle used to print halftone screens; the frequency or screen ruling used in printing halftones; and the neutral density of the ink for trapping; if it's like ACF) followed by a 32bytes string (Ink name).

Color list starts here:

Lab values: 3 shorts (=0 if <Lab>=0)

CMYK values: 4 shorts

RGB values: 3 shorts

If <Palette Type> equals 8 or 16, here comes 34bytes: 1 short (number of hifi inks used), 8 pairs of shorts (ink id/ink value)

Colour Type: 1 short

If <Palette Type> equals 8 or 16, Model: 1 short

Colour Name: 32bytes string

Corel Palette (.cpl)

Byte order is little-endian. Strings are composed of a char followed by <char> single or double-byte characters.

Colour spaces:

2	CMYK	bytes 5-8 [0..100]
4	CMY	bytes 5-7 [0..255]
5	RGB	bytes 5-7 [0..255]
6	HSB	bytes 5-8 5+6=long H[0..360] SB[0..255]
7	HLS	bytes 5-8 5+6=long H[0..360] LS[0..255]
9	Grayscale	byte 5 [0..255]
11	YIQ	bytes 5-7 [0..255]
12	CMYK	bytes 5-8 [0..255]
15	Hexachrome	bytes 3-8 YOMCGK[0..255]
17	CMYK	bytes 5-8 [0..255]
18	Lab	bytes 5-7 [0..255]
20	Registration	bytes 5-8 [0..100]

Version 5-8

Version: 2bytes hex string (ccbc/ccdc)

Entries: short

Color List

Colour space: short

Character encoding: short (1,2,7 => double-byte; 5,11 => single-byte)

Colour Values: 8 chars

Colour Name: string

Version 9-11

Version: 2bytes hex string (cdbc/cddc)

4 longs: always 3,0,30,1 in the files I've analysed

1 long: unknown1

1 long: always 2

1 long: unknown2 = unknown1 + 2 = palette header size - 2

Palette Name: string (cdbc => double-byte; cddc => single-byte)

1 short: unknown3

Entries: short

Colour List: there are 2 different ways to describe the colours but I don't know what should lead me to the long or the short way...

The short way is the same as 5-8

Here is the long way:

Order: long

Colour space 1: short

Character encoding 1: short

Colour Values 1: 8 chars

Colour space 2: short

Character encoding 2: short

Colour Values 2: 8 chars

Colour Name: string

Version 12-13

Version: 2bytes hex string (dddc)

Same as 9-11 except that the palette name is double-byte encoded

Special Palettes

Version: 2bytes hex string (dcdc)

Palette Name: string

Entries: short

Colour List

same as 5-8