Elpical Claro Premedia provides a complete image processing workflow for printers, publishers and online communication companies that require fast processing of high volumes of images while achieving cost reduction and improved quality.

Prepared to be wowed and see Claro in action in our fantastic image enhancement gallery

Through the Claro Individual Image Analysis, Claro Premedia individually analyses each image for a range of specific parameters and then enhances the image for highest-quality results… even images inside an unflattened PDF.
Claro Premedia also automates other image or photo processing tasks such as intelligent ICC-based DeviceLink conversions or file format conversions.

It is currently on version 12.

The Elpical Claro JobClient for InDesign® offers seamless integration of the Claro Premedia workflow into InDesign.
The Claro Inspector for Photoshop® allows side-by-side viewing of original and processed image versions.
The new Claro Settings Assistant offers an easy-to-use desktop environment for creating, modifying and personalising settings.

Claro Premedia is easily integrated in nearly any editorial or production automation system.

click on the samples below, for a before and after comparison

Workflow

  • Create unlimited number of hot folder based workflows (channels)
  • Routing channels based on image metadata (IPTC, XMP,… ) allows to direct images to a Claro channel, a folder, ftp destination and/or email address
  • Claro JobClient for Adobe InDesign seamlessly integrates image optimisation in page layout workflow.
  • Elpical Claro Inspector for Photoshop®. Integration for optimum side-by-side control of specific images (Mac & PC)
  • Support for Photoshop CS2-CS4 on MacOSX and PC
  • Embed processing information into XMP
  • Professional backup of original and/or processed files
  • Runs as a background server process
  • Easy XML based integration into existing workflows

Image manipulation

  • Images inside PDF files can be enhanced, resampled and colour converted
  • ICC based colour conversions and profile assignment & embedding
  • CMYK-to-CMYK conversions without conversion to LAB
  • Save Ink (limit total area coverage)
  • Device link profile generation, based on source and destination profile
  • DeviceLink channels for CMYK to CMYK conversion
  • Influence rendering intent based on out-of-gamut percentage
  • Resampling and resizing of images
  • Add processing data in the XMP data of the processed file

Image optimisation

  • Local contrast enhancement of image details with respect for overall image brightness
  • Superior control over and dynamic optimisation of sharpness, brightness, saturation, noise, black point/white point, and colour balance
  • Recognition and dynamic optimisation of natural greens, blues and skin tones
  • Reduce JPEG artefacts
  • Red eye reduction, based on image analysis and/or exif flash info
  • “contrast in luminosity mode” option to isolate contrast manipulation from colour manipulation
  • optional brightness curve to preserve contrast by only manipulating the image’s mid-tones

Claro V12 has 3 focal points: ENHANCE, VISION, REMOVE

1. ENHANCE – Making the image look even better, automatically
Claro delivers a number of powerful new functions and enhanced existing controls

New Toning Functions:

  • Brand Colours – detection, protection and correction
  • Selective Colour Correction – precise color corrections to specific colours in the image
  • Mid Tone contrast control – separate control for contrast in the midtones
  • New Colour Balance engine – for greater colour cast identification and reduction
  • Minimum Edge Dot Creation – introduces a border around the image edge to ensure a defined border

Extended Toning functionality:

  • Advanced highlight contrast controls
  • Advanced noise filtering & reduction
  • Enhanced Skin Tone recognition engineOperational Functionality
  • Regular Expressions Utilization
  • OpenJDK support
  • Https for client connections and API

2. VISION – Direct integration with Google’s Vision AI engine to provide image understanding and specific toning capabilities

Integrating directly with the exceptional technology from Google, Claro is today capable of utilising Vision, the image recognition AI engine.

Vision provides industry leading accuracy for image understanding. Claro utilises this data to bring truly intelligent, decision based toning and enhancement for all images.

But it’s for more than just image enhancement – in fact it doesn’t have to do anything like that…

Standardised metadata generation & addition to the image’s IPTC metadata
Vision provides standardised metadata terms, utilize Claro for adding this metadata to an image’s IPTC fields – no more need for hours and hours spent manually adding keywords (not to mention all the non standardized terms)… perfect when ingesting content into a DAM.

For the digital teams
Combining the image optimization capabilities of the latest Claro and Vision, online images become more powerful for improving search engine rankings and increasing conversion rates.

  • Image Enhancement – Increased click throughs and conversion rates
  • Image SEO – Filename automatically appended with keywords
  • File size reduction – Thumbs & Full size images resized perfectly for the website
  • File Format selection – optimise website loading times with the correct image format

3. REMOVE – Integrate with Remove.bg’s background removal tool to create accurate cutouts and clipping paths in seconds, all inside the Claro workflow
remove.bg

The ‘holy grail’ of the photoshop department, automated clipping paths and cutouts, is now part of the Claro workflow.

Embracing AI integration even further, Elpical is collaborating with Remove.bg the industry leading background removal software to offer image enhancement and automatic cut outs/masks within the Claro workflow.

Send images directly from Claro to the Remove.bg service and you’ll receive a layered file (or transparent.png) ready for all requirements, print, online and more.

Remove image backgrounds in seconds and optimise the photoshop team for their creative skill sets.

 

* Google Vision and Remove.bg operations require additional sign up with Google and Remove.bg respectively.

Key Features

The ultimate in image enhancement, Claro offers:

  • Current Version 12
  • Stay in control of your workflow with Claro Inspector for Photoshop®, which allows you to route critical images (automatic detection) to Adobe® Photoshop® for side-by-side comparisons and further manual tweaking.
  • Claro Individual Image Analysis for automated image enhancement based on each image’s specific requirements
  • Consistent image enhancements across a wide range of image types (TIFF, JPEG, DCS-RAW, Photoshop EPS, BMP, etc.)
  • File output support for TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, GIF, PNG, EPS, PSD (including original layers, compatibility layer and processed layer)
  • Multi-platform availability
  • Up to 4 parallel image-processing threads for maximum performance and multi-processor capability
  • XML job file support for easy integration into existing workflows
  • High level memory management
  • User friendly help application and password protection
  • Web based user interface for easy remote server control
  • Claro Settings Assistant for creating, modifying and personalising settings in a desktop environment (New in claro 8)

System Specification

Minimum requirements (processing one image at a time): 

2 processor-cores, >= 3 Ghz, 4 GB RAM

Recommended requirements (processing 4 images simultaneously):

8 processor cores, >= 3 Ghz, 16 GB RAM

I/O performance

(Disk I/O encompasses the input/output operations on a physical disk)

Not usually found in system requirements, I/O performance can nevertheless be very important for the performance of applications, and indeed it is for Claro. On physical, dedicated machines, this typically is not an issue, although there is a considerable advantage in using SSD drives.

Note: Claro works fine in virtual environments. The performance is comparable with running Claro on physical machines IF the I/O performance is good. Which is not always the case, and also difficult to asses in a virtual environment.

Throughput / performance

Lets start with a some processing times on a macbook pro 13″, with a 2.6 Ghz Intel i5 (thats 2 cores) and 8GB RAM, and an SSD harddrive, using one image process, and all typical features enabled. Keep in mind that you can process up to 4 images simultaneously in a properly dimensioned server. That means that to calculate throughput you can divide the processing time per image by approximately a factor of 3 (since there is a little overhead in processing 4 images simultaneously). In this example configuration, the SSD drive is good, but the processor is hardly suitable with only 2 cores and 2.6 Ghz.

0.5 million-pixel image:  2 sec

6 million-pixel image: 23 sec

18 million-pixel image: 40 sec

Note: As you can see, a big factor in performance is the number of pixels of images. Claro can also resample images. It is the first step

Resources

Videos:

See how Claro worked for other companies

Brochure:

Click here to download PDF Brochure