Evaluating Profiles with ColorThink Pro

Color Management

Objective

It is critical to check the quality of ICC profiles prior to use. Sharma (2004) states: “If the quality of a profile is poor, the results are likely to be poor” (p. 325). Clearly, the ultimate test of a profile is to use it in a workflow, but such tests are expensive and tend to lead the user on a path of iterative trial-and-error, which largely defeats one of the key benefits of ICC-profile based color management. Here, a procedure for printer profile evaluation using Chromix® ColorThink Pro software is outlined, with the goal of providing readers with a step-by-step methodology for such evaluation. For more detailed information on ColorThink Pro, readers are encouraged to reference ColorWiki (Category:Manuals, n.d.) and Ashe (2014) Color Management & Quality Output, Focal Press.

Assessment of ICC profiles and color reproduction involves expertise from color science, psychophysics and image analysis. The first approach used in the present analysis evaluates the accuracy of a press profile “round-trip” test that is conducted using only the software, without costly hard copy output. Profile accuracy is defined as the color difference between what you desired (e.g.: your original image) and what you obtained, (e.g.: the reproduction). This difference is expressed in Delta-E (Sharma, 2004). Round-tripping involves conversion from device to CIELAB values (otherwise known as the inverse side, or B2A transform) and then subsequently from CIELAB back to CMYK (also known as the forward side, or A2B transform). The Delta-E difference between B2A and A2B is evaluated to see the accuracy of the reversibility (Sharma, 2005).

Chromix® ColorThink Pro is an extensive software suite of tools specifically designed for the evaluation of ICC profiles. ColorThink is an application created by Chromix®, and has many features and tools that allow the analysis of profiles, workflows and measured quality. As a workflow tool, ColorThink enables users to analyze the overall process involved in producing images and profiles from start to finish, and displays what happens to the color throughout the transforms (Ashe, 2014).

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