Approaching color management (1)

No longer unfamiliar

Color management is no longer a strange word. What is its use? Experts will tell you that installing a proper color management system will reduce some unnecessary troubles. You will no longer worry about printing customers complaining about color deviation. Of course, the color management system will help you to attract more. Printing business

The birth of a color management system is closely linked with desktop publishing and digital printing. In fact, until the ad design company, creators, and other users made simple design creations on the Mac, the problem of conflicting colors was not prominent. In the past, desktop publishing systems such as Scitex, Crosfield, and Hell's electronic page imposition systems maintained good integrity and authenticity throughout the workflow, so there was no need for color management. The price is that the system is very closed. Now we don't need to go back to the old path of the closed system because of color problems. If we really do that, it would be a cart before the horse.

Into a success

When people talked about color management in the past, they always thought of it as a simple matter of how to use proofs to match the final print, how to use Cromalin and Bruner to control the color. Today, the role of color management has changed a lot. First, image output machines require color management more than scanners and exposure devices. Second, Postscript page description language has gradually become an industry standard, it can handle color page files, so the color management in the Postscript workflow mentioned on the agenda. The color file function of the Postscript2 processing page that is just beginning to launch is not very powerful, and now Postscript3 can process more color page files. Color management is just such a background

Reproduction space

Apple Computer International Co., Ltd. is one of the earliest companies involved in the field of color management. Hard work pays off, and Apple's efforts in exchange for the ColorSync color management system. As an industry accepted standard, we need to mention some simple and complex software related to it. Take ColorSync as an example, ICCProfile (Color Profile) constitutes its basic building block. ICCProfile converts a series of standard colors into colors approved by the output device. An output device such as a scanner, a monitor, and a printer understands the color information and decides how to handle the colors. After the colors are calculated, they are displayed or printed out. The working process of the color profile is to convert any input color message into the color in the CIELab color space. In turn, it can convert the color of the CIELab color space into the color reproduction space of the output device. The algorithm idea of ​​the color characteristic description file is to realize the space conversion.