GETTING STARTED - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3: Streamlining Your Digital Photography Process - page 30

ICC PROFILES
An ic c p roi le is a small computer i le that describes
the color space of an image or imaging device. A color-
managed workl ow uses proi les for each i le and device in
the imaging pipeline. Proi les are stored in specii c places
within your operating system so they are made available
to any program using the cms. h e cms uses the proi le to
handle the translation of numeric color values between devices. Proi les may end
in the extensions .icc or .icm (International Color Consortium, or Image Color
Management, respectively).

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In many image i le formats, the proi le for the image's color space can be
embedded in the i le. h e embedded proi le tells the color management system
the parameters for translating the photo's colors to dif erent devices—printer,
monitor, etc.

Previously processed image i les on your hard drive, such as psd and tif , may or
may not have embedded color proi les depending on how they were previously
saved, and whether or not their i le formats support embedded proi les. Camera
raw and dng i les can not contain embedded icc p roi les (however, dngs ca n

contain a camera proi le, discussed in Chapter 4). jpg i les captured from your
camera will have the proi le embedded for the color space set on your camera
(typically sr gb or Adobe r gb).

Lightroom will respect any proi le embedded in imported image i les, and for i les
with no embedded proi le, sr gb is used.

Source and destination
h e cms processes the color values in the source proi le to create the optimum
values for the destination . For example, when printing, an image i le in the Adobe
r gb color space would be the source and an Epson printer proi le would be the
destination.

CALIBRATING AND PROFILING YOUR DISPLAY
h e most important factor in achieving accurate color for your digital
photographs is working on a calibrated and proi led display. Calibrating your
display corrects its output settings, and proi ling makes an icc p roi le for use by
the cms.

Calibrating and proi ling your display must be done with a combination of
dedicated hardware and sot ware. Sot ware alone, such as Adobe Gamma, is not
sui cient; you must use a measurement device to perform accurate calibration. I
recommend the X-Rite i1 (Eye One) or Color Munki systems for this.