Color Management for Photographers

CHAPTER 4

Building Scanner Profiles

If you are working with a film or flatbed scanner, these devices need to be color managed since once again, what these devices create is a unique flavor of RGB. The only way to define these numbers for proper viewing and subsequent color space conversions is to create an ICC profile for each capture device. Notice I mention that the scanner produces a flavor of RGB. What about those scanners found in print and prepress shops that produce only CMYK scans? Well, these scanners are initially RGB capture devices. Many have internal systems that produce RGB-to-CMYK conversions that can’t be turned off. This presents a color management problem for some users. The best approach is to avoid scans produced in this fashion. ...