ColorSync and MacOS X: Devices
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
_______________________________________________
colorsync-users mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/colorsync-users
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.