Color Management, What is it really??

[Skinflint]

Color management seems to have many components all playing a roll at different stages.
Can anyone explain the process from beginning to end?
From within design applications, monitor, proofing, press etc...
How does it really work? Are there any good books that explain the topic?

[Stephen Marsh]

Amazon.com: Real World Color Management (2nd Edition) (0785342267228): Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy, Fred Bunting: Books

Stephen Marsh

[LoneGoose]

Lots of books are recommended in various posts on this forum. Any reply to your message is necessarily going to be too brief or abstract to give you any practical details of what you're asking. Agree with Stephen, above, you should visit Amazon - the book by Abhay Sharma is also good (it seems most people get both books - Real World & Sharma - eventually).

See if you find anything of use on the icc website... INTERNATIONAL COLOR CONSORTIUM ... They basically orchestrate the whole technology.

[Lukas Engqvist]

There are several parts:
Understanding colour
Understanding how we see colour
Understanding the limits of each medium and colour model
Managing the variables so that each medium is as consistent as possible (to the standard for that medium so that it is consistent with itself, and other media of the same type)
Making the decisions how to convert colours, and the philosophy behind the various rendering intents

Colour management is the last of those, the decisions.

[jstanzione]

I'd just like to second Stephen Marsh's post on November 27. I have read Real World Color Management, and I have found it to be an excellent tool that attempts to explain the process in 'real world' English! This book has helped me a great deal and I wholehartedly recommend it.

Regards,

John Stanzione
Manager - Technical Support
Pantone LLC

[tthompson]

Here is a good place to start getting the answers you are looking for:

ColorWiki - Color Management Answers

[wordtothis]

Understanding the limits of each medium and colour model

Having a solid grasp of this is definitely paramount.

[mallomarx]

I would sum up Color Management in the following way: Color Management is a consciousness that, behind every digital value, there is a mathematical visual value associated to it. Every CMYK, every RGB, every CMYKOG has some kind of correlated visual value. You simply need to be conscious of that and... when you don't know the answer... seek it. There is always an answer. If you can correctly determine it, you can successfully manage it. Once you achieve this consciousness, issue like "why does this RGB value look different on my monitor and on my printer?" start to become a lot clearer, as well as both the solutions and limitations of communicating color.

When I started at Monaco Systems in 2002, I was told "In every case, if you use the software [color management] correctly, it will not let you down." In my experiences to date, for the most part, this has been true.

My 2 cents.

Marc
marc@colormanagement.com

[schenkadere]

It's a scientific attempt to control something that is completely subjective. Agree or not...if a customer says it's too red...it's too red...even if you know better because that's what they see...and no level of expertise and no measurement device will change that.

It's a pretty good way to control a process with so many variables.

[Lukas Engqvist]

It's a scientific attempt to control something that is completely subjective. Agree or not...if a customer says it's too red...it's too red...even if you know better because that's what they see...and no level of expertise and no measurement device will change that.

That's what contract proofs are for. So that the customer will sign off this is the colour I want…*then i can match it. This is just because colour is subjective, and even more we know that (physical as opposed to hypothetical) people have poor colour memory.