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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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  <head>
    <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
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    <title>Color Management</title>
    <meta content="Graeme W. Gill" name="author">
  </head>
  <body>
    <h2 style="text-decoration: underline;">A Concise Introduction to
      Color Management and ICC profiles<br>
    </h2>
    [Note that there are many other, perhaps more comprehensive and
    expansive "introduction to Color Management" resources on the web.
    Google is your friend...]<br>
    <br>
    Color management is a means of dealing with the fact that color
    capture and output devices such as Cameras, Scanners, Displays and
    Printers etc., all have different color capabilities and different
    native ways of communicating color. In the modern world each device
    is typically just part of a chain of devices and applications that
    deal with color, so it is essential that there be some means for
    each of these devices to communicate with each other about what they
    mean by color.<br>
    <br>
    Successful color management allows colors to be captured,
    interchanged and reproduced by different devices in a consistent
    manner, and in such a way as to minimize the impact of any technical
    limitation each device has in relation to color. It must also deal
    with the interaction of human vision and devices, allowing for such
    fundamental vision characteristics as white point adaptation and
    other phenomena. It should also allow the human end purposes to
    influence the choice between&nbsp; tradeoffs in dealing with
    practical device limitations.<br>
    <br>
    The key means of implementing color management is to have a way of
    relating what we see, to the numbers that each device uses to
    represent color.<br>
    <br>
    The human eye is known to have 3 type of receptors responsible for
    color vision, the long, medium and short wavelength receptors.
    Because there are 3 receptors, human color perception is a 3
    dimensional phenomena, and therefore at least 3 channels are
    necessary when communicating color information. Any device capable
    of sensing or reproducing color must therefore have at least 3
    channels, and any numerical representation of a full range of colors
    must have at least 3 components and hence may be interpreted as a
    point in a 3 dimensional space. Such a representation is referred to
    as a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Color Space</span>. <br>
    <br>
    Typically color capture and output devices expose their native color
    spaces in their hardware interfaces. The native color space is
    usually related to the particular technology they employ to capture
    or reproduce color. Devices that emit light often choose <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Red Green</span> and <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Blue</span> (<span style="font-weight:
      bold;">RGB</span>) wavelengths, as these are particularly
    efficient at independently stimulating the human eye's receptors,
    and for capture devices R,G &amp; B are roughly similar to the type
    of spectral sensitivity of our eyes receptors. Devices that work by
    taking a white background or illumination and filtering out (or <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">subtracting</span>) colors tend to use
    <span style="font-weight: bold;">Cyan</span>, <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Magenta</span>, and <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Yellow</span> (<span
      style="font-weight: bold;">CMY</span>) filters or colorants to
    manipulate the color, often augmented by a <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Black</span> channel (<span
      style="font-weight: bold;">CMYK</span>). This is because a Cyan
    filters out Red wavelengths, Magenta filters out Green wavelengths,
    and Yellow filters out Blue wavelengths, allowing these colorants to
    independently control how much RGB is emitted. Because it's
    impossible to make filters that perfectly block C, M or Y
    wavelengths without overlapping each other, C+M+Y filters together
    tend to let some light through, making for an imperfect black.
    Augmenting with an additional Black filter allows improving Black,
    but the extra channel greatly complicates the choice of values to
    create any particular color. <br>
    <br>
    Many color devices have mechanisms for changing the way they respond
    to or reproduce color, and such features are called <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Adjustments</span>, or <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Calibration</span>. Such features can
    be very useful in adapting the device for use in a particular
    situation, or for matching different instances of the device, or for
    keeping its behavior constant in the face of component or
    environmental changes. Sometimes there may be internal
    transformations going on in the device so that it presents a more or
    less expected type of color space in its hardware interface. [ Some
    sophisticated devices have built in means of emulating the behavior
    of other devices, but we won't go into such details here, as this is
    really just a specialized implementation of color management. ]<br>
    <br>
    To be able to communicate the way we see color, a common "language"
    is needed, and the scientific basis for such a language was laid
    down by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) in 1931
    with the establishment of the CIE 1931 <span style="font-weight:
      bold;">XYZ</span> color space. This provides a means of predicting
    what light spectra will be a color match to the Standard Observer.
    The Standard Observer represents the typical response of the Human
    eye under given viewing conditions. Such a color space is said to be
    <span style="font-weight: bold;">Device Independent</span> since it
    is not related to a particular technological capture or reproduction
    device. There are also closely related color-spaces which are direct
    transformations of the XYZ space, such as the <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">L* a* b*</span> space which is a more
    perceptually uniform device independent colorspace.<br>
    <br>
    As mentioned above, the key to managing color is to be able to
    relate different color spaces so that they can be compares and
    transformed between. The most practical approach to doing this is to
    relate all color spaces back to one common colorspace, and the CIE
    XYZ colorspace is the logical choice for this. A description of the
    relationship between a devices native color space and an XYZ based
    colorspace is commonly referred to as a <span style="font-weight:
      bold;">Color Profile</span>. As a practical issue when dealing
    with computers, it's important to have a common and widely
    understood means to communicate such profiles, and the <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">ICC</span> profile format standardized
    by the <b>International Color Consortium</b> is today's most widely
    supported color profile format.<br>
    <br>
    The ICC profile format refers to it's common color space as the <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Profile Connection Space</span> (<span
      style="font-weight: bold;">PCS</span>), which is closely based on
    the CIE XYZ space. ICC profile are based on a Tagged format, so they
    are very flexible, and may contain a variety of ways to represent
    profile information, and may also contain a lot of other optional
    information.<br>
    <br>
    There are several fundamental types of ICC profiles. <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Device</span> and <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Named</span> profiles represent color <span
      style="text-decoration: underline;">anchor points</span>. <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Device Link</span> and <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Abstract</span> profiles represent <span
      style="text-decoration: underline;">journeys</span> between anchor
    points.<br>
    <br>
    <span style="font-weight: bold;">Device</span><br>
    <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; These primarily provide a translation between
    device space and PCS. They also typically provide a translation in
    the reverse direction, from PCS to device space. They provide an
    "color anchor" with which we are able to navigate our way around
    device color. The mechanisms they use to do this are discussed in
    more detail below.<br>
    <br>
    <span style="font-weight: bold;">Device Link</span><br>
    <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A Device Link profile provides a transformation
    from one Device space to another. It is typically the result of
    linking two device profiles, ie. Device 1 -&gt; PCS -&gt; Device 2,
    resulting in a direct Device 1 -&gt; Device 2 transformation.<br>
    <br>
    <span style="font-weight: bold;">Abstract</span><br>
    <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; An abstract profile contains a transformation
    define in PCS space, and typically represents some sort of color
    adjustment in a device independent manner.<br>
    <br>
    <span style="font-weight: bold;">Named</span><br>
    <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A Named profile is analogous to a device Profile,
    but contains a list of named colors, and the equivalent PCS and
    possibly Device values.<br>
    <br>
    Most of the time when people talk about "ICC profiles" they mean <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Device Profiles</span>. Profiles rely
    on a set of mathematical models to define the translation from one
    colorspace to another. The models represent a general framework,
    while a specific profile will define the scope of the model as well
    as it's specific parameters, resulting an a concrete translation.
    Profiles are typically used by <span style="font-weight: bold;">CMM</span>s
    (Color Management Modules), which are a piece of software (and
    possibly hardware) that knows how to read and interpret an ICC
    profile, and perform the translation it contains.<br>
    <br>
    Often the function of a CMM will be to take two device profiles, one
    representing the starting point and the other representing the
    destination, and create a transformation between the two and
    applying it to image pixel values.<br>
    <br>
    Two basic models can be used in ICC profiles, a <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">Matrix/shaper</span> model and a <span
      style="font-weight: bold;">cLUT</span> (Color Lookup Table) model.
    Models often contain several optional processing elements that are
    applied one after the other in order to provide an overall
    transformation. <br>
    <br>
    The Matrix/Shaper model consists of a set of per channel lookup
    curves followed by a 3x3 matrix. The curves may be defined as a
    single power value, or as a one dimensional lookup table which
    encodes a discretely represented curve (Lut). The matrix step can
    only transform between 3 dimensional to 3 dimensional color spaces.<br>
    <br>
    The cLUT model consists of an optional 3x3 matrix, a set of per
    channel one dimensional LUTs, an N dimensional lookup table (cLUT)
    and a set of per channel one dimensional LUTs. It can transform from
    any dimension input to any dimension output.<br>
    <br>
    All Lookup Tables are interpolated, so while they are defined by a
    specific set of point values, in-between values are filled in using
    (typically linear) interpolation.<br>
    <br>
    For a one dimensional Lookup table, the number of points needed to
    define it is equal to its resolution.<br>
    <br>
    For an n-dimensional cLUT, the number of points needed to define it
    is equal to it's resolution taken to the power of the number of
    input channels. Because of this, the number of entries <span
      class="st"><em></em></span>climbs rapidly with resolution, and
    typical limited resolution tables are used to constrain profile file
    size and processing time. cLUT's permit detailed, independent
    control over the the transformation throughout the colorspace.<br>
    <br>
    <span style="font-weight: bold;">Limitations of CIE XYZ</span><br>
    <br>
    Although CIE XYZ colorspace forms an excellent basis for connecting
    what we can measure with what we see in regard to color, it has its
    limitations. The primary limitation is that the visual match between
    two colors with the same XYZ values assumes identical viewing
    conditions. Our eyes are marvelously adaptable, automatically
    adjusting to different viewing conditions so that we are able to
    extract the maximum amount of useful visual information. There are
    many practical situations in which the viewing conditions are not
    identical - e.g. when evaluating an image against our memory of an
    image seen in a different location, or in viewing images side by
    side under mixed viewing conditions. One of the primary things that
    can change is our adaptation to the white point of what we are
    looking at. This can be accounted for in XYZ space by applying a
    chromatic adaptation, which mimics the adaptation of the eye. The
    ICC profile format PCS space by default adapts the XYZ values to a
    common white point (D50), to facilitate ease of matching colors
    amongst devices with different white points. Other viewing condition
    effects (ie. image luminance level, viewing surround luminance and
    flare/glare) can be modeled using (for example) using CIECAM02 to
    modify XYZ values.<br>
    <br>
    Another limitation relates to spectral assumptions. CIE XYZ uses a
    Standard Observer to convert spectral light values into XYZ values,
    but in practice every observer may have slightly different spectral
    sensitivities due to biological differences, including aging.
    (People with color deficient vision may have radically different
    spectral sensitivities.) Our eyes also have a fourth receptor
    responsible for low light level vision, and in the eye's periphery
    or at very low light levels it too comes to play a role in the color
    we perceive, and is the source of a difference in the eye's spectral
    sensitivity under these conditions. <br>
    <br>
    Another spectral effect is in the practice of separating the color
    of reflective prints from the light source used to view them, by
    characterizing a prints color by it's reflectance. This is very
    convenient, since a print will probably be taken into many different
    lighting situations, but if the color is reduced to XYZ reflectance,
    the effect of the detailed interaction between the spectra of the
    light source and print will lead to inaccuracies.<br>
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