Legacy Document

Inside Macintosh: Advanced Color Imaging on the Mac OS /

Chapter 3 - Introduction to the ColorSync Manager / Introduction to Color and Color Management Systems

Color Management Systems

Members of the computer and publishing industries have developed color management systems (CMSs) to convert colors from the color space of one device to the color space of another device. The goal of these systems is to provide consistent color across peripheral devices and across operating-system platforms. Most CMSs are proprietary. The ColorSync Manager, however, supports an industry-standard color profile specification defined by the International Color Consortium.

The components of a color management system include

• collections of color characteristics (these collections are given various names, such as color tags, precision transforms, or in the case of the International Color Consortium, profiles)
• a color management module that performs the color matching among color characteristic collections
• a programming interface for invoking color matching
• device-independent color spaces

A color management system gives the user the ability to perform color matching, to see in advance which colors cannot be accurately reproduced on a specific device, to simulate the range of colors of one device on another, and to calibrate peripheral devices using a device profile and a calibration application.

The next section describes the ColorSync Manager, which constitutes the color management system for the Macintosh OS.