Devices and Colours
If you were to show a thousand people various shades of red and ask each one to point to the true red colour, you will probably get a thousand different answers. Each person has their own opinion on what the colour red looks like. Devices to some degree are no different.
There are many devices that deal with colours: scanners, printers, digital cameras and monitors. If they all displayed the same colour the same way, then there wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, each device displays colours differently so if you were to transfer a picture between two devices, chances are the colours won’t be the same. This is where colour management comes in.
The goal of colour management is to obtain a match of a colour between devices, provided the device is capable of displaying the necessary colour.
In order to get the same colour to display on a device you would first need to calibrate the device. A search on Google for monitor calibration will result in almost two million pages in the search results. There is much discussion on calibrating your monitor. Once you have calibrated a device, you will then have a colour profile that can be associated with that device.
Colour Profiles
Once you calibrate your monitor you can save the information in a file called a colour profile. This file contains information about mapping the colours for that device. Some mappings may provide information about the closest possible colour and remap the entire colour range to allow for different gamuts.
Many of the devices that are used to present specific colours to the user include an ICC colour profile that may be installed along with the drivers and applications. The colour profiles may also be available on the vendor’s Web site or through a third party.
You may need several colour profiles for a particular device to ensure that your colours are as accurate as possible. For example, a photo printer can print a photograph on many different types of paper: glossy, matte, normal printer paper. Each of the paper types reproduce colours differently, and as such will require a separate colour profile for the printer. You may be able to get a profile from the paper manufacturer, or they may suggest a profile to use. Either way, it is best to use a profile specific to that paper type.
In photo editors, there is an option to define the various colour profiles to use for the devices. Make sure you select the colour profile that is associated with each device that you will be using to ensure that your get accurate colours.
When saving your photos, you can embed the ICC colour profile so if someone were to open that photo on a computer without the profile, the colours will still be displayed accurately because the profile information is embedded inside the file. The downside to this is that it makes your image file larger.
Summary
Each device that is used with photographs can display colours differently. To get accurate colours, it is important to use a colour profile for that device. The device’s vendor, or a third party vendor, can provide you with the necessary colour profile for the device. Some devices, such as printers, may require different colour profiles depending on the target output, such as glossy or matter paper.
