Real World Color Management (2nd Edition)

Every graphics professional worth his or her salt knows the importance of color management. No matter how much thought artist and client put into the color scheme for a given project, all of that work is for naught if you can't get your results to match your expectations. Enter Real World Color Management, Second Edition. In this thoroughly updated under-the-hood reference, authors Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy, and Fred Bunting draw on their years of professional experience to show you everything you need to know about color management. Whether your final destination is print, Web, or film, Real World Color Management, Second Edition takes the mystery out of color management, covering everything from color theory and color models to understanding how devices interpret and display color. You'll find expert advice for building and fine-tuning color profiles for input and output devices (digital cameras and scanners, displays, printers, and more), selecting the right color management workflow, and managing color within and across major design applications.

[...]... and why we need them 3 4 Real World Color Management, Scrond Edition b The strengths and weaknesses of color management are rooted in our ability (or inability) to quantify human color Vision accurately If you understand this, your expectations will be more realistic b Color theory explains why a colorviewed ina complex scene such asa photograph looks "different" from the same color viewed in isolation... displaying images that look like realistic depictions of the things they portray depends on exploiting specific properties of the way humans see color Color management is just an extension of that effort b They'll explain some of the terminology you'll encounter when using color management software terms like colorimetric, perceptual, and saturation, for example A little color theory helps explain these... see a different color We find it interesting that the three ingredients of the color event represent three of the hard sciences: physics, chemistry, and biology Understanding how light affects color takes us into the physics of color; ngure11 The color event A eolor event always has three parricipants 6 Real World Color Management, Sewid Edition understanding how objects change light involves the... following statements: Color is a property of obieds This is the first and most persistent view of color No matter how much we mav have philosophizd about color, we all still speak of "green apples," "red lights," and "blue suede shoes." Chapter B What Is Color? 5 Color is a ptop.r(y dlight.This is the textbookcounterclaim tothe view of color as a property of objects Authors of color books and papers... this chapterto use color management But a passing familiarity with these concepts and terms can often come in handy And you may well come to realize that, although you've probably done it all your life, in reality"it5 not easy seeing green." Where Is Color? If you want to manage color, it helps to first understand just what it is so let's start by examining your current definition of color Depending on... insmmentsyou may use with color management This chapter explains just what they measure Butwe have to 'Fess up to anotherreason forwritingthis chapter: color is just really darned interesting While this chapter sets the stage and lays the foundation for other chapters in this book, we hope it will also spark your curiosity about something you probably take for granted-your ability to see colors If you're intimidated... experience we call color Color is an event that occurs among three participants: a light source, an object, and an observer The color event is a sensation evoked in the observer by the wavelengths of light produced by the light source and modified by the object If any of these three things changes, the color event is different (see Figure I-1)-in plain English, we see a different color We find it interesting... with the concepts behind the technology, color management may seem l i e magic We don't expect you to become as obsessed with color as we are-indeed, if you want any hope of leading a normal lie, we advise againstit-but we do recommend that you familiarize yourselfwith the fundamentals we lay out in this chapter b They'll help you understand the problem that color management addresses The whole business... radio radio visible l i g h y A infrared fIR) 8 Real World Cdor Management, Second Edition Our eyes respond only to this tiny sliver of the full electromagnetic spectrum, and they have varying responses to different parts of this sliver-the different wavelengths evoke different sensations of color So we've come to associate the different wavelengfhs with dle colors they evoke, from the reds at the low-energy... property of objects Authors of color books and papers love to stress that "light is color" or "no light, no color. " Color h p ain the ob-er This concept captures our imagination when we encounter optical illusions such as afterimages, successive contrast, and others that don't seem to originate in the objects we see Color is something that originates in the eye or the brain of the observer The correct .