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Color Factory system requirements
Color Factory system requirements and pre-installation notes.
11. April 2025
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Hardware
- Minimum 1 2.5 GHz Processor. More cores or physical CPUs are better.
- Minimum 2 GB RAM for Color Factory exclusively. This depends greatly on the size of the images being processed. For example, a 1 GB PSD may require 10GB of available physical memory. For more information, see the Scalability section below.
Operating system
Windows Server 2022. 2019 or 2016
Note: The above OS requirement applies to 64-bit versions of Color Factory (version 8.0 build 800 and higher).
32-bit versions of Color Factory (before build 800) also run on Windows server 2008. Current and future releases of Color Factory are 64-bit only.
Note: The service account running Color Factory processes needs local administrator privileges.
Scalability
Due to the scalability of a Color Factory installation, system requirements vary greatly depending on the type of system you are setting up. The specifications below outline the software required to run Color Factory. If you need help choosing hardware for the installation, contact Fotoware.
RAW file support
Color Factory can use the Adobe DNG converter to process RAW files. An advantage of this is that all corrections made to the RAW file in the Photoshop Camera RAW module and Lightroom are reflected in the output file.
Simply download Adobe DNG converter from the Adobe website and install it on the server. Then restart the Color Factory service to use the DNG Converter to process RAW files.
Optional add-ons
- Third-party EPS file processing software, such as Ghostscript, is required for certain vector file formats.
- FFmpeg - for more information, see How to install FFmpeg for FotoWeb, Index Manager, and Color Factory.
About logging
All Fotoware applications report to the Fotoware Log Server, which is installed alongside the server application. The communications between the server application and the log server use UDP port 7000. Since the communications occur internally on the server, you do not need to open UPD port 7000 in your firewall. However, you should be aware that Microsoft DNS server can be configured to use arbitrary ports for communications, which could potentially distort communications with the Log Server if it should come to use UDP port 7000. Therefore, you should make sure to block the use of port 7000 in the DNS server and make that port exclusive for Fotoware applications.
Limitations
Color Factory can use Windows system notifications to receive information about files that are added to its processing queues as it happens. This functionality is only available with NTFS (New Technology File System) file systems. Color Factory can, of course, use any type of file system that Windows allows it to access, but it will then rely on polling the channel folders regularly to search for new files to process.
Important note about file systems
Color Factory can use file system notifications to receive information about files that are added to its processing queues. That way, it can pick up new files that enter the processing queues immediately. This functionality is only available by accessing the shares over the SMB protocol, or when accessing local drives on the Windows server. Color Factory can, of course, use any type of file system that Windows will allow it to access, but it will then rely on polling the channel folders regularly at a preset interval to discover new files to process.
It's also possible to send files to Color Factory via the FWP protocol (IP) from FotoStation.
For more information on asset storage, see Asset storage in a Fotoware system.