Color Management System 1

Color Management System

R. Chung, Professor

Color management is about managing the extended

print media process involving more than putting dots
on plate and ink on paper.
V_2005a

Copyright 2006 Printing Industry Center at RIT– May not be reproduced without permission.

Topics
!  Color imaging reality

!  Color management solutions

!  Color management components

!  Color management in action

!  Color imaging challenges

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Color Management System 2

Color Imaging Reality

!  A color imaging system typically consists of a
number of diverse components.
Input Process Output

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Color Imaging Reality

!  Poor device-to-device color agreement exists.
–  Input devices
-  Scanners / Digital cameras / stock photos
–  Display devices
-  Monitors used by art directors, prepress houses
–  Output devices
-  Presses / Digital printers / Proofers

!  This lecture focuses on color management issues,

i.e., achieving color agreement.

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Color Imaging Reality

!  Large number of color-related mistakes
–  High level of failure, wastes, and frustration

?
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Color Management Solutions

!  Huge number of possible conversions from any
input to any output
–  (n x m) combinations

(n x m) conversions

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Color Management Solutions

!  Solution by ICC color management
–  A hub is used to go from one device to the other.
–  (n + m) combinations

(n + m) conversions

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Color Management Solutions

!  International Color Consortium
–  Founded in 1993
–  Purpose
-  To create and promote the standardization of an open, vendor-
neutral color management system
–  http://www.color.org

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CMS Components
!  PCS •  Rendering intents
!  Profiles •  API
!  CMM

A B A
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PCS
!  Profile Connection Space
–  Denoted as B space
–  Allows us to give a color an unambiguous numerical value in
CIEXYZ or CIELAB that doesn t depend on the various devices

!  Is the parameter to measure and define colors

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Profiles
!  A profile describes the relationship between a
device s (RGB or CMYK) signals and the actual
color that those signals produce
–  A profile is device specific.

!  A profile is a look-up table (LUT).

–  Denoted as A space

!  Profile doesn t alter a device behavior.

–  It only describes the behavior.

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Profiles
!  The CMM takes two profiles, i.e., a source profile
and a destination profile, to convert colors pixel by
pixel.
–  The source profile tells the CMS where the color comes from.
–  The destination profile tells the CMS where the color is going.

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CMM
!  Color Management Module

!  Software engine that converts RGB or CMYK

values of an image using the LUTs in the profiles.

(Source) (Destination)
Data ICC ICC Data
File Profile PCS Profile File
CMM
API

A B A
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CMM
!  It converts values from the source color space to
the PCS (A2B).

!  It, then, converts values from the PCS to a

destination space (B2A).

(Source) (Destination)
Data ICC ICC Data
File Profile PCS Profile File
CMM
API

A B A
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CMM
!  Available CMMs can be located at Library/
ColorSync/CMM in OS X
–  Apple
–  Ace (Adobe Color Engine)

!  Adobe CMM was released in 2006 for use in non-

Adobe applications.
–  http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/cmm.html

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Rendering Intents
!  Three look-up tables (LUTs)
–  ‘0’ for perceptual
–  ‘1’ for colorimetric
–  ‘2’ for saturation

!  Four rendering intents

–  Perceptual
–  Relative colorimetric
–  Absolute colorimetric
–  Saturation

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Perceptual Rendering
!  Denoted as ‘B2A0’

!  Preserves the overall color appearance and the

overall color relationships while the entire gamut is
compressed
–  Suitable for rendering pictorial color images that contain many
out-of-gamut colors.

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Relative Colorimetric Rendering

!  Denoted as ‘B2A1’

!  Recognizes the white point from the destination

profile

!  Matches reproducible colors

–  Does not affect colors already within the destination gamut

!  Clips out-of-gamut colors

!  Used for proofing on actual substrate

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Absolute Colorimetric Rendering

!  Map the white point of the source to its destination.

!  Matches reproducible colors

–  Least delta_E
–  Clips out-of-gamut colors to the closest reproducible hue.

!  Used for proofing to simulate the final substrate

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Saturation Rendering
!  Denoted as ‘B2A2’

!  Keep saturated colors in the source to the

destination to produce vivid colors.
–  Suitable for pie charts and other business graphics

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API
!  Application Programming Interface
–  A feature in operating system software
-  Provides color matching to application software using standard
architecture and profile format

(Source) (Destination)
Data ICC ICC Data
File Profile PCS Profile File
CMM
API

A B A
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CMS in Action
!  Photoshop as API
–  Assigning profiles
–  Embedding profiles
–  Converting with profiles

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Assigning Profiles
!  Use menu command to assign or not assign a
profile to an image.

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Assigning Profiles
!  Give the RGB or CMYK numbers specific
definition.
–  It will change the colors, not the numbers.

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Assigning Profiles
!  The same digital values, e.g., 200R, 100G, 50B will
appear differently in different RGB working spaces.

1) Build a RGB image.

2) Make a duplicate, and
3) Assign different RGB
working space to the
duplicate.
4) Compare with the initial
RGB image.

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Embedding Profiles
!  Embed or not embed a profile when saving the file.

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Embedding Profiles
!  Provide color portability
–  Scan to print
–  Digital illustration to display

!  Increase the file size

–  The size of the profile

!  Not suited for test targets and terminal files

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Converting with Profiles

!  It needs two profiles, i.e., a source profile and a
destination profile.
–  The source profile figures out what actual colors the numbers
represent.
–  The destination profile figures out the new set of RGB or CMYK
numbers needed to represent those same actual colors on the
output device.

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Converting with Profiles

!  It changes the RGB or CMYK numbers in the file.
–  Denoted as ‘A2B2A’

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Color Imaging Challenges

!  Desktop prepress technology has revolutionized
imaging and publishing industries.
–  ICC-based color management pushes its boundary.

!  The success of CMS depends on

–  Process stability
–  Device profiling
–  Process control

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Color Imaging Challenges

!  Color management is about managing the
extended print media process.
–  Involving more than putting dots on plate and ink on paper

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Summary
!  ICC color management system simplifies the color
conversion.
–  It reduces (n x m) number of conversions to (m + n) number of
conversions from the source color space to the destination color
space.

!  Color management has two tasks.

–  CMS has to figure out what perceived colors our RGB and
CMYK numbers represent by ‘assigning’ a profile to an image.
–  CMS has to keep those colors consistent as we go from device
to device by ‘converting’ an image from one device color space
to the other.

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