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Color management is the ability to reproduce consistent and
repeatable color across all your devices; so that an image you
see on your monitor can be reproduced accurately on other
monitors, and your printers as well.Color reproduction can be a complex process
ICC profile color management defines color information in
standard terms necessary for proper reproduction of images.
Monitors, printers, scanners, and cameras should be profiled.
Working and output spaces – such as Adobe RGB, sRGB, SWOP CMYK,
(etc.) – should be embedded and preserved when opening files.
An ICC profile is a set of data that characterizes a color input
or output device, or a color space, according to standards by
the International Color Consortium (ICC). Profiles describe the
color attributes of a particular device or viewing requirement
by defining a mapping between the device source or target color
space and a profile connection space.
Profiles are simply look-up tables that describe the properties
of a color space. They define the most saturated colors
available in a color space; the bluest blue or deepest black
your printer can produce. If you don't have a profile, the trio
of Red, Green, and Blue values that make up a color have no
particular meaning — you can say something is blue, but not
exactly which shade of blue. Accurate profiles are the key to a
color managed workflow. With accurate monitor and printer
profiles, your prints will closely match what you see on your
monitor. Without profiles, you need to rely on trial and error
combined with good old-fashioned guessing.
Every device that captures or displays color can have its own
profile. Some manufacturers provide profiles for their products,
and there are several products that allow end users to generate
their own color profile, typically through the use of a
colorimeter.
The ICC defines the format precisely but does not define
algorithms or processing details. This means there is room for
variation between different applications and systems that work
with ICC profiles. |