- Monitor Basics in Plain English
- Pixel Pitch and Enlarged Mode
- Native Resolution and Enlarge Mode
- How can a screen sense touch? A basic understanding of touch panels
- Is the beauty of a curve decisive for color reproduction? Learning about LCD monitor gamma
- Smoother Video with Cutting-Edge Technologies: LCD Monitor I/P Conversion
- Altering color dramatically with a single setting: Examining color temperature on an LCD monitor
- Maximum Display Colors and Look-Up Tables: Two Considerations When Choosing a Monitor
- DisplayPort to D-Sub: The Full Range of LCD Monitor Video Input Interfaces
- The Ability to Display Color Correctly Is Vital: Understanding the Color Gamut of an LCD Monitor
- The Making of a FlexScan Monitor
- Are the Response Time Figures True? A Close Look at LCD Video Performance
- The Difference in Image Quality Is Perfectly Obvious! – Let's Check the LCD's Display
- Making Full Use of the "External" LCD with Laptop Computers
- Color Management Resources
What is a Color Management System (CMS)?
Why do colors vary between different output devices?
Sometimes color reproduction varies between different input devices such as digital cameras and scanners, or between different output devices such as monitors and color printers.
When using your monitor to edit and retouch an image you have generated and then printing that image, different colors might be output by different devices, even though these devices are processing the same data. Each device—an inkjet printer, a color copier, or professional printing equipment, even in offset printing—has its own color characteristics and tendencies. The color management system, or CMS, has been developed as one method of resolving such color inconsistencies.
A CMS is designed to enable uniform reproduction of colors on all devices.
A CMS is an integrated system to enable uniform reproduction of colors from input through output, taking into consideration the color characteristics and tendencies of each device.
Building a CMS system starts with preparing profiles containing data on the color characteristics of each device. Some color profiles are provided standard by device manufacturers, but when higher precision is required a CMS tool can be used to prepare such profiles. These profiles can be used with the color engines included in personal-computer operating systems and other programs to share colors between devices.
Benefits of adopting a CMS
When implementing color management, a profile is required for the monitor used. A personal computer's OS can be set to prepare the optimal profile as of each time calibration is conducted. This feature makes it possible to improve the precision of color management.
Since the colors displayed on the monitor will be the same as those of the final output, the monitor must be capable of accurate color reproduction.
When using a CMS, images can be printed exactly as they appear when edited on the monitor. Accordingly, the monitor plays a very important role.
If a CMS is used to enable unified color reproduction in all processes of a workflow, paper output (proofs) is unnecessary. In addition, since color matching in each process is no longer required, a CMS can result in improvements in operational efficiency and precision.
