color profiles

In color management, an ICC profile is a set of data that characterizes a color input or output device, or a color space, according to standards promulgated by the International Color Consortium (ICC). Profiles describe the color attributes of a particular device or viewing requirement by defining a mapping between the device source or target color space and a profile connection space (PCS). This PCS is either CIELAB (L*a*b*) or CIEXYZ. Mappings may be specified using tables, to which interpolation is applied, or through a series of parameters for transformations.
Every device that captures or displays color can be profiled. Some manufacturers provide profiles for their products, and there are several products that allow an end-user to generate his or her own color profiles, typically through the use of a tristimulus colorimeter or a spectrophotometer (sometimes called a spectrocolorimeter).The ICC defines the format precisely but does not define algorithms or processing details. This means there is room for variation between different applications and systems that work with ICC profiles. Two main generations are used: the legacy ICCv2 and the December 2001 ICCv4. Since late 2010, the current version of the format specification (ICC.1) is 4.3.ICC has also published a preliminary specification for iccMAX (ICC.2) or ICCv5, a next-generation color management architecture with significantly expanded functionality and a choice of colorimetric, spectral or material connection space.

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