Yes, Elpical Claro Premedia Server is the main product. But there are two other versions.
Claro Premedia Server is a hot folder based server application for automating image corrections such as global contrast, local contrast, flesh tones, sharpness, noise reduction, etc. There are three types of processing that Premedia Server can perform. The first is the image correction channel (the above are some of the corrections Claro performs). The second is a "routing channel". Claro can look at the IPTC information, file naming conventions, color spaces, and a few other parameters to decide which channel or directory to deliver files to. This is great if you have channels set up for scenes vs. portraits vs. some other criteria. Simply filling in the requisite IPTC fields or key words Claro can make routing choices which can include delivering to a processing channel, local/network directory, ftp location or email. The third type is a device link channel for performing device link conversions on the fly.
It runs on Mac OS X, Windows, Linux. Pretty much anything that supports Java. Premedia Server supports 4 simultaneous processes with the ability to license more.
As part of Premedia Server there are two plug-ins to aid production. The first is the PhotoShop Inspector. The PhotoShop Inspector can be fed by one or more processing channels where the original image is presented side by side with the processed image in PhotoShop. The operator(s) can decide if they like the original or Claro's version more and decide which one to use. Generally speaking operators will take the processed image as a first round correction. Then while in PhotoShop with the original they can further process by hand the Claro processed version and then tell Claro to use the processed version (there's a button in the PhotoShop inspector). If the decision is made that the original image needs hand tuning (it is a machine, not a person) then the operator can perform all the corrections they want to the original and tell Claro to use the original image that was hand processed.
The second plug-in is for an InDesign client. These clients are in addition to Claro Premedia Server which comes with the PhotoShop plug-in. The InDesign client allows a user to open up their InDesign files, place, scale, crop the images as part of the layout process. Then the designer can submit the images via the InDesign plug-in to Premedia Server where all the image processing will occur while they continue the layout process. Premedia Server returns the images to the layout as optimized images (scaled, cropped, resampled and corrected) back to InDesign when done and re-links them.
The second version of Claro is Claro Single which is meant for command line integration like for a web site or some other server based process. It does not come with a GUI.
The third version is Claro Layout. Claro Layout is a plug-in for InDesign much like the Premedia Server InDesign plug-in. But rather than sending images to a remote server Claro Layout does all the processing on the local workstation.
All versions of Claro perform the same corrections. Claro Premedia Server and Single can be integrated directly into Enfocus' PowerSwitch. Claro Single can be integrated into FullSwitch. Claro Layout can only be run on a local workstation while running InDesign and cannot be automated.
If anyone wants to see a demo or some sample images please feel free to let me know. This is just a high level overview of the features and capabilities and not a comprehensive detail of features and capabilities.
