Overview of International Color Consortium (ICC) Profiles

High-end imaging applications, such as Adobe Photoshop®, provide support for International Color Consortium (ICC) color management. For printers, ICC profiles provide the color transform into the device color space of the printer for a particular media type, ink set, and print mode.

To manage color with ICC profiles, settings must be made in both the application and in the printer driver. In the application, the correct profile for the printer/media/ink set combination must be selected, along with the rendering intent (perceptual, relative, absolute, or saturation).

The Perceptual intent includes color re-rendering such as tone scaling and sophisticated gamut mapping to give pleasing output. It generally gives the best subjective image quality when reproducing images on different media.

Absolute Colorimetric and Relative Colorimetric are typically used for proofing, where accuracy is more important than subjective quality. Saturation is seldom used, but is intended to give vivid colors and pure primaries.

In the printer driver, the media type, quality mode, and Managed by application must be selected.