Investigating Inverse Gamut Mapping of Current Color Management Tools

摘要

Color fidelity can only be achieved if each device is characterized properly, e.g. Using a suitable Color Management (CM) tool. Those tools claim to give both accurate and consistent results. Unfortunately, CM tools of distinct manufacturers show different results even if the same parameters are given. Obviously the manufacturers use different techniques to fit the measurement data into a model of the device to be characterized, thus each CM tool has its own strengths and weaknesses. Several quality aspects can be defined, e.g. Accuracy, consistency, smoothness and now invertability as a new criterion which is discussed in detail in this paper. In short terms, invertability is the ability to reconstruct the original data after gamut mapping; a demand originating from the printing industry due to established workflows. In order to achieve this, some kind of Inverse Gamut Mapping (1GM) technique must be applied. In this study, a recently developed visualization technique is used to show the performance of ICC profiles generated by several CM tools with respect to the investigated quality aspect called invertability, with ΔE_(ab) and ΔE_(94)taken as the criteria. The same measurement data, depending on the printing device and media, is used for the generation of each ICC profile.