Why is color management needed?
Different device types tend to possess different color characteristics and capabilities. Displays, for instance, can’t show the same set of colors that a printer can reproduce. This is because of the fundamentally different processes each device uses to produce color content. Scanners and cameras have different color characteristics as well. Even different programs sometimes interpret and process colors differently. Without a consistent color management system, the same picture can look different on each of these devices. The appearance of color content also depends upon the viewing conditions (such as ambient lighting). This is because the human eye adapts differently to different conditions, even when viewing the same picture. As a result, color management maintains the relationships within color content so that an acceptable appearance can be achieved on devices with different color capabilities and across different viewing conditions. This requires color management systems to contr
If I only had a dime for every time I heard “Why don’t the colors on the monitor match the colors that come out of the printer?” or “How come digital prints look different from scanned originals?” There are many reasons, based in complex color science, why the appearance of a color image is difficult to predict on different devices. In many ways, communication in color has problems similar to those with communication in languages. Each device is like a person, speaking his or her own language. When one person that speaks French attempts to communicate with another person that speaks Japanese, there is a breakdown, and the message is not communicated accurately, if at all. What’s needed is an interpreter that is capable of interpreting the language as well as the dialect, to ensure that the message is properly communicated. The same holds true for color reproduction. There are a few basic concepts to understand when working with color. The first is how devices reproduce color, and the s
