Colour management

Colour management means managing colours across a heterogenous device chain. Before the era of digital imaging there was sort of mechanic colour management by means of perfectly harmonising all machines in a printing plant. In today's computer age an image is generated by scanners or digital cameras, edited with image editing software, used in a desktop publishing process with a maybe completely different computer system and finally sent to the digital printing plant as file.

All those devices work with different colour spaces or display colours differently even if they work with the same colour space. In order that the picture at the end of the process chain is not totally different from the one originally taken colour profiles specifying the colours of every involved device  compared to the reference colour space are generated by means of colour management systems. Thus it can be ensured that the original colours are retained when transferring from one device to another.

Colour management for a typical home user comprehends calibration of the screen, scanner and printer. A screen is ideally calibrated by means of a colorimeter, a scanner by means of an IT-8 calibration chart and a printer by means of a spectrometer.

Detailed information about colour management can be found on our colour management websites.