Color: An Introduction to Practice and Principles, 3rd Edition

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Color Reproduction

Reproduction of color experiences from lights or materials in the same or another medium is an old problem. Some painters wish to recreate their experience of looking at a still life scene as lifelike as possible. Some artisans want to duplicate for mass consumption the look of certain rare materials (say, a garnet stone) with inexpensive means (say, glass). Dyers may need to duplicate the color appearance of a fabric dyed by a competitor, or the painted standard of a customer. A photographer wants the child and flowers in the picture to appear as closely as possible to the original. A paint manufacturer may see sales opportunities with a line of paints duplicating colonial colors. A graphic designer wants to see the colors on the display screen of her computer reproduced as exactly as possible on paper. A large direct-mail retailer wants the customer to have an accurate impression of the colors of the merchandise shown in the catalog. The problems are manifold, the solutions often complex and specific to the problem at hand. Needless to say, color reproduction has undergone dramatic changes in the last two decades because of rapid technological changes and increasing digitalization of input, processes, and output.

The general purpose of color reproduction is to have the appearances of original and reproduction match, preferably under all conditions. Since the ...