You have long heard about the wonders of digital photography and you finally jumped in. You bought the equipment, set it all up, and your prints look terrible because the colors are not right. You make color adjustments and waste tons of expensive paper and ink, only to come up with a mediocre result. Now you’re ready to throw all your equipment out the window. Nearly everyone who strives for high quality prints has gone through this frustration. Although this article is not an exhaustive technical study of color management it should get those who are new to the subject of color management started in the right direction and demystify the topic. Perhaps it will save you some of the frustration I went through years ago.
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Understanding the Problem
Every physical device deals with color in its own unique way. Film scanners may use either a LED (Light Emitting Diode) or fluorescent light source for capturing the film image on a CCD (Charge Coupled Device). Digital cameras use CCD based technology too, but several very different designs are used by the various manufacturers. Each monitor manufacturer uses its own electronic circuit design. CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors use entirely different technology than LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) monitors. Inkjet printers made by various manufacturers use different technologies to spew ink formulated by various other manufactures onto paper made by still other manufacturers to produce color prints. Without any set standard, it is obvious that any given color will not look the same on all of these devices. Fortunately, there is a solution known as color management, where calibration or profiling of each device to a known standard gives consistent and accurate results.
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Color Spaces
A color space simply defines a range of possible colors. Colors possible in one color space may not be possible in another, and all are more limited than the range of colors that exist in the real world. Your digital camera, film scanner, monitor, and printer all operate within their own unique and non-standard color spaces. Some devices never expose their unique color space to the outside world, and instead translate it into one of several standard color spaces internally, before you ever see the data. The first step in managing color on an imaging system is to decide on a system-wide “standard” color space within which all images will be viewed and adjusted. There are a number of standard color spaces that are used for various reasons. The most common standard color spaces for photographic imaging are sRGB and Adobe 1998. The sRGB color space is the standard for Internet use because it most closely represents the way uncalibrated color monitors reproduce color. sRGB is frequently used for color printing too, but it is one of the more limited spaces. Adobe 1998 is a larger color space that enables a wider range of tonalities and is therefore better for critical printed work. It is important to remember that images meant for one color space will look terrible when viewed in a different one. For instance, if you put your Adobe 1998 images on a web page without converting them to sRGB, they will look dull and muted.
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Device Color Profiles
Any color can be represented within its color space by a set of three numbers that define its red, blue, and green components. It is the job of device color profiles to translate or map each color in the device’s color space to a color in the “standard” color space. Once a color is translated into a standard color space it will look the same on every device that has an accurate mapping (color profile) between its own color space and the standard one. These profiles are the key to getting accurate color from your system. Device color profiles can be created, bought, or supplied free by equipment manufacturers. For a totally color managed system, digital cameras, scanners, monitors, and each printer, paper, and ink combination need a profile. Since you look at a monitor to decide on color adjustments, and you then want those adjustments accurately reflected in your prints, the most important profiles are for your monitor and printer. These are the only two profiles I will address in detail here.

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Only the Basics
This article has presented only the most basic concepts of color management. Although a lot more can be learned about this topic, a good implementation of these basic concepts is enough for excellent print making. Obtaining accurate equipment profiles and using them properly will save plenty of ink, paper, and frustration.

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Happy imaging!

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