Welcome to Colourgenics' On-Line Printing System, also known as ROES (Remote Order Entry System - pronounced as "rose").

It is a small yet powerful Java application that lets you select, size, crop and rotate images on your computer, then send it over to Colourgenics for printing. Any modern computer can run it and download takes only a few seconds. Roes takes complete care of placing an order and it's free to use. You can pick up finished prints from our downtown location or have them shipped within Canada (see shipping/pick-up options when placing an order).

Question? Problems? Concerns? Please email support@colourgenics.com and we'll do our best to help you!

If you are a first time user, please take your time and at least glance at the following paragraphs,
otherwise just hit this Big Red Button and go! Thanks for using CG ROES!

1. Hardware requirements

You need a modern computer to use this system.
Well, a fairly modern computer - at least a G4 on a Mac side, and Pentium 3 or faster on PC side - with a screen that supports resolutions of at least 1024x768 pixels in truecolour (16.7M colours). Having your screen calibrated is a definite plus. You would also need at least 256MB of RAM and at least a gigabyte of free harddrive space.
Lastly, while it is possible to use ROES over a modem connection, it will likely be a very frustrating experience. We recommend using broadband.

2. Software requirements

Windows XP, MAC OSX 10.3 or newer, Internet Explorer 6 or newer, Firefox 1.5 or newer.
Because ROES is a cross-platform Java application, you will need to have Java runtime environment installed. If you are using Windows, Linux or Solaris, head over to www.sun.com and check out their Java/Downloads section. Java is installed by default on any recent Mac. If you have less than 512MB of RAM please consider quitting any running applications before launching ROES (this obviously excludes your browser!)

3. File formats and sizes

Please use Jpegs only.
We strongly recommend using JPEG format for the images you are submitting on-line. While the system supports most popular file formats, including TIFF, submitting uncompressed files will result in huge amounts of data that would need to be uploaded. Because most broadband connections are asymmetrical (uploads are MUCH slower than downloads) you might end up getting stuck with HOURS of uploading. Besides, on our end, if we see that some transfers are taking too long you might get disconnected just to free up a slot for another customer. So don't upload uncompressed files, please. It's just not worth the trouble.

But what about image quality, you ask? Isn't JPEG compression destructive and makes everything look pixely and crunchy? This is true for very high rates of JPEG compression. However, sticking to a quality ratio of 85-95%, or JPEG Quality set to 8-9 in Photoshop's "Save as Jpeg" dialog window - will guarantee results virtually undistinguishable from prints made from TIFF files. Better still, if your digicam takes pictures in JPEG format, just leave them as they are.

4. Colour Management

Please use sRGB colour space.
The back-end server application that does all the colour math for our system is fully colour-managed. Your browser, however, is not - making it entirely possible to see very different picture on screen and in print. Therefore, unless you are an expert in profiles, colour management in general and colour conversion in particular, we recommend using sRGB IEC61966-2.1 colour space for all your on-line printing needs. Conveniently, most consumer and prosumer digicams use sRGB as a default and so does our Noritsu printer. If this paragraph makes no sense whatsover, move along to paragraph 5 - "Working Smart".

Let's assume however that you are a colour expert and sRGB is just not good enough for the artwork at hand. What do you do then? We have two ways of dealing with this situation.
A) Use AdobeRGB1998 colour profile (also needs to be specifically selected in ROES application)
B) Use whatever colour space you deem necessary, but make sure to embed that colour profile with EVERY file you are submitting; in addition, please write us a note mentioning this fact. This is important, please do not disregard this step.

Come to think of it, embedding profiles in EVERY file is good practice, even if you are using default sRGB colour space. It helps with troubleshooting and removes all the uncertainty from your expectations with regards to final output.

5. Working Smart

Pre-sort and place your images into a separate folder on harddrive.
Once you launch the application, it will ask you to select the folder where your images are. It can be a folder on your harddrive, it can be an USB drive, or a CD-ROM, or your camera's memory card, etc. It can contain thousands of pictures - generally speaking ROES works with all of these scenarios. However, a smarter way of dealing with this is to pre-sort your images and put them in a separate folder on your local harddrive - this will make the process much, much faster and more convenient.

6. Clicking the Big Red Button

What happens next? Depending on your operating system, browser version and other factors, you will likely see a warning window much like this:

Click "Trust".
Your application will start loading templates and user interface. It is also likely that your browser will place a file called "launch.jnlp" on your desktop - more about this in a moment. In some extreme scenarios a browser might be configured explicitly not to trust any internet programs. This is when that "launch.jnlp" file comes in handy. Double-click it to start ROES application.

7. Working with ROES

For up-to-date info on using the software check out ROES Client User’s Guide and ROES Client FAQ Page. Good luck!