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ColorSync and MacOS X: Devices
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ColorSync and MacOS X: Devices


  • Subject: ColorSync and MacOS X: Devices
  • From: John Gnaegy <email@hidden>
  • Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 18:02:28 -0800

Lately I've received several questions about ColorSync settings on MacOS X, so instead of replying individually I figured it would benefit everyone to post the info here. Thanks go to David Hayward for helping to document this.

ColorSync settings on MacOS X revolve around the idea of ColorSync devices. When you connect a piece of hardware to the computer it becomes a registered device. You can launch Apple System Profiler or IORegistryExplorer if you have it to see some examples of devices like hard drives, video cards, keyboards and memory modules. Some of these are relevant to graphics work, and based on this list of all attached devices there is created a list of ColorSync Devices. This list can be viewed and modified using the app "/Applications/Utilities/ColorSync Utility". The ColorSync Device list contains all relevant input or output devices ever attached to your system.

Each device has several properties, including:
- a unique device ID
- a device name (which never changes),
- one or more named modes,
- an indication of which mode is the current or default mode

Similarly each named mode of a device has several properties, including:
- a unique mode ID
- a mode name (which never changes ) to describe paper type, dithering options, quality settings, etc.
- a factory profile which is either a profile provided by the device or its driver
- a current profile which the user or the calibration software can change,

In the best of all possible worlds you'd be surrounded by piles of each kind of device...several printers, half a dozen cameras, four displays. Each device has its own current profile at any given time which is updated automatically to reflect the device's state. For a printer, switching from Draft Quality to Best quality or from Inkjet Paper to Photo Glossy paper might change the printer's mode and thus set a new profile for the device. The potential is there for other devices as well, cameras might have different modes for each white point setting, scanners might have one mode for scanning paper and another for scanning slides. Application software or system software could make use of each device's current profile when matching data from or to the specific device. Since the work of changing the modes or creating the initial profiles is done by the system software in combination with the driver, no user intervention is necessary. The whole point of having ColorSync Devices is to have a reasonable profile assigned to a piece of hardware without user intervention, which can optionally be overridden at the user's discretion.

The ColorSync Utility - Devices pane is a sort of "one-stop-shopping" place to get information about all registered ColorSync devices. It is however not the only place to view this information. For example, the SystemPreferences-Displays-Color pane also allows the user to see or change the current profile for each display device.

Even though the ColorSync Device registration system is designed to be extendable to a wide range of devices, there still exist a number of legacy applications that work with a simpler device model. The traditional device model often allows the user to specify one profile for "input," "output," "display," and "proof" device. If you have more than one "input" device, for example, then the user must pick one to be used in the current workflow. The "Device Profiles" tab in the ColorSync prefs pane is designed to accomodate applications that choose to use this traditional device workflow model. For each of the meta-devices (input, output, display, and proof) the user can choose to use the current profile from a registered device or pick a completely different profile from the "Other Profile" submenu.

---
John Gnaegy
email@hidden
colorsync
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