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Inside Macintosh: Advanced Color Imaging Reference /: Chapter 3 - ColorSync Manager Reference for Applications and Device Drivers / Constants and Data Types

Profile Classes
The ColorSync Manager supports seven classes, or types, of profiles. Three of the profile classes define device profiles for different types of devices: input, output, and display devices. A device profile describes the characteristics of a particular device and shows how to convert and match colors for the device in a particular state.
The other four profile classes include definitions for an abstract profile, a color space profile, a named color space profile, and a device-linked profile.

An abstract profile allows applications to perform special color effects independent of the devices on which the effects are rendered.
A color space profile contains the data necessary to translate color values expressed in a nondevice color space to a profile connection space (PCS) as necessary for color matching.
A named color space profile contains data for a list of named colors. The profile specifies a device color value and the corresponding CIE value for each color in the list.
A device-linked profile combines multiple profiles, such as various device profiles and color space profiles associated with the creation and editing of an image.

A profile creator specifies the profile type in the profile header's profileClass field. For a description of the profile header, see "Profile Header Structure for ColorSync 2.x" (page 3-43). The following enumeration defines the profile type signatures:
enum {
   cmInputClass      = 'scnr',/* input device profile */
   cmDisplayClass    = 'mntr',/* display device profile */
   cmOutputClass     = 'prtr',/* output device profile */
   cmLinkClass       = 'link',/* device-linked profile */
   cmAbstractClass   = 'abst',/* abstract profile */
   cmColorSpaceClass = 'spac',/* color space profile */
   cmNamedColorClass = 'nmcl' /* named color profile */
};
Enumerator descriptions

cmInputClass
An input device profile defined for a scanner.
cmDisplayClass
A display device profile defined for a monitor.
cmOutputClass
An output device profile defined for a printer.
cmLinkClass
A device-linked profile.
cmAbstractClass
An abstract profile.
cmColorSpaceClass
A color space profile.
cmNamedColorClass
A named color space profile.