Digital Color Management: Encoding Solutions, 2nd Edition

PART IV

A Unified Color-Management Environment

In the previous parts, the subjects of color measurement, imaging systems, color vision, the colorimetric characteristics of various types of color-imaging devices and media, color-encoding methods, color-encoding data metrics, and output signal processing have been discussed. Each of these topics is an important piece of a much larger picture.

In this final part, that picture will be completed. The individual pieces will be assembled in such a way that a plan is created for a unified color-management environment for the color-imaging industry.

If that plan is implemented, it will be possible for all imaging systems and applications—from the most basic to the most comprehensive—to function together within a single, global, color-managed environment.

Three things are required for the achievement of this objective:

• An overall paradigm that defines how the entire color-managed environment will work.
• A color-encoding scheme that provides appropriate representation of color throughout the environment.
• An overall architecture that allows the environment to be implemented in a practical way.

In the next chapters, the various paradigms that define how color is managed in existing color-imaging systems will be described. It will be shown that although each offers essential (but different) features, no current paradigm is sufficiently extensive in scope to support a truly global color-management environment. To provide that necessary support, ...