HP RIP Software - HP RIP Software User Guide

Color Management Overview 4-3
Color Management
Overview
To take full advantage of how the RIP manages color, you should under-
stand the following concepts:
• How Color is Defined
• Why Color Management is Needed
• How Color Management Works
Each of these topics is introduced on the following pages. The entire
scope of color management issues as they relate to digital imagery and
wide format output is beyond the scope of this manual. For further infor-
mation, refer to the following sources:
• The International Color Consortium, www.color.org
• Apple ColorSync, www.apple.com/colorsync
• A Guide to Understanding Color Communication, X-Rite, available
for free download at www.xrite.com/documents/literature/en/L10-
001_Understand_Color_en.pdf
• Fundamentals of Large-Format Color Management, International
Reprographic Association, by Roy Bohnen and Sean O'Leary.
(www.irga.com/secure/store/)
• Real World Color Management, Peachpit Press, Peachpit Press, by
Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy, and Fred Bunting. ISBN 0321267222.
(www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor/)
• Mastering Digital Printing: The Photographer's and Artist's Guide to
High-Quality Digital Output, Muska & Lipman/Premier, by Harald
Johnson, ISBN 1929685653.
How Color is Defined The ability to precisely measure and define colors is essential in the
reproduction of images. All visible colors can be defined by three char-
acteristics:
• Hue — the property of color that is determined by the wavelengths
of light coming from an object. It is the property we refer to when
we call a color by its name, such as red, purple, or bluish green.
• Saturation (chroma, purity, intensity, vividness) — the clarity of a
color, the extent to which it is not dulled or grayed.
• Lightness (luminance, brightness, value, darkness) — indicates
how light or dark a color is, how close it is to black.
Other frequently used terms for these three characteristics are HSV
(hue, saturation, value), HSL (hue, saturation, lightness), and HVC
(hue, value, chroma).
These three characteristics can be illustrated by a three-dimensional
model consisting of stacked disks. Circular movement around each disk