Adobe and Datacolor Tools Streamline Digital Design for Textiles

Datacolor®, a global leader in color management technology, is collaborating with Adobe to launch tools to streamline the process of digitally designing prints for fabrics. The collaboration pairs Datacolor’s professional color lookup tool, ColorReaderPRO, with the Adobe Photoshop plug-in: Adobe Textile Designer.

The integration of ColorReaderPRO with Adobe Textile Designer software allows designers to measure color inspiration in the real world and transfer the data to Photoshop automatically via Bluetooth connection.

The Adobe Textile Designer solution and ColorReaderPRO debuted at the ITMA Textile and Garment Technology exhibition in Barcelona, Spain from June 20-26.

“Adobe Textile Designer was conceived to help streamline the print design process,” said Mike Scrutton, director of print technology and strategy for Adobe’s Print & Publishing Business Unit. “We are excited to incorporate the ColorReaderPro into the solution to simplify the process of capturing inspiration color for designers.”

Many designers use Photoshop when starting fabric designs, but with the introduction of Adobe Textile Designer, users can now build and preview repeating patterns, define separations, work with colorways and keep every element editable in Photoshop until a design is print ready.

With this Adobe plugin, designers can use Datacolor ColorReaderPRO to measure any source of color inspiration and translate the color data directly to Photoshop.

“Adobe Photoshop has always been an indispensable tool for designers and brands, and the pairing of our ColorReaderPRO with Adobe Textile Designer opens the door for users to be more creative than ever before,” said Diane Geisler, Vice President of Marketing for Datacolor. “We are thrilled to collaborate with Adobe to help artists and designers streamline the process of designing prints for fabrics, while cutting costs, saving time and increasing overall efficiencies.”

The ColorReaderPRO works seamlessly with third-party color standard libraries, including Color Solutions International’s (CSI) ColorWall™, and brands’ color libraries. This integration offers tremendous time and cost savings in the textile design process by eliminating the need to manually search and match textile color samples with swatches or color codes.

Designers can use Datacolor’s ColorReaderPRO with CSI’s ColorWall library and Adobe Textile Design plug-in for Photoshop to streamline the process of choosing colors for fabrics for fashion and furnishings.

“Finding the correct color can be an inefficient activity in the print design process that can lengthen the production cycle,” said Tim Williams, Marketing Manager, CSI. “Adobe Textile Designer paired with the ColorReaderPRO offers users an efficient means to create colorways, whether using CSI’s 3,700+ ColorWall or selecting from existing Custom colors in their own library.”