Chapter 17. Essential Color Management
Most artists react very warmly to the word "color" and a bit more coolly to the word "management." One's reaction is normally a matter of temperament, and you may be able to empathize. Put the two words together, though, and you can clear a room in seconds. The term color management has been known to simultaneously frighten and bore the most steadfast of graphic artists, photographers, and computer users.
It's no exaggeration to say that color management is the least understood topic in all of computer imaging. Most people, if they think about it at all, expect to calibrate their monitors and achieve reliable if not perfect color. But in point of fact, there's no such thing as perfect color. So-called device-dependent color — synthetic color produced by a piece of hardware — is a moving target. The best that Photoshop or any other piece of software can do is to convert from one target to the next.
For what it's worth, most consumer monitors (and video boards, for that matter) are beyond calibration, in the strict sense of the word. You can try using a hardware ...
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