Color matching for web, iPhone and iPad development

bjango.com

14 points·justinweiss··3 comments

I've always found color management both fascinating and impenetrable.

It's been predicted that there is a new wave of devices with enhanced saturation (there is a name for it - I forget), so this will only grow in importance!

I have two monitors from different brands. Even capturing a screenshot in them yields colors that are not quite the same (maybe due to one of them being slightly aging and being calibrated?).

Any good intro on this area?

It's not the screenshot that's different - the underlying rgb values are device-independent – but rather, it looks different on every display.

Calibration is the only answer, but really, other than color critical applications, such as press matching, color matching is not as important as it may seem. Every device will display colors a bit differently. This isn't really a problem, since our eyes naturally correct for small differences, ie. you won't see the difference unless you see them side by side.

The color gamut for all monitors is a function of their luminance (ie. how bright they are), plus edge enhancements that push some chroma values further. These devices will actually suffer from color management, since trying to maintain device independent color will actually inhibit edge colors.

It is conceivable that the operating system used to capture the screen shot included the monitor's color profile in the image, and that profile then somehow incorrectly applied by whatever viewing software was used to display the images.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com