HP Designjet Z6200 Photo Printer - Manual (Page 104)

To control the output of color imaging devices, the following color spaces are normally used:
● RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) is the color space typically used for additive devices. A color is
represented as a combination of specific quantities of red, green, and blue colorants that create
the range of colors (color gamut) in the device.
NOTE: Colors in subtractive devices can also be controlled by using RGB data. Especially when
control over the printer’s black ink is unnecessary, this is an efficient option.
● CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) is the color space for subtractive devices, such
as printers or presses. A color is represented as a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and
black (K) inks, and combinations provide the entire range of colors in the device.
Color spaces are only methods of controlling different color-imaging devices. They do not describe
colors directly. The same CMYK values, for example, create different colors when sent to different
printers that use different inks and paper types. For example, consider a printer that can use indoor inks
or outdoor inks. The printer (hardware) is the same, but it has two different color gamuts due to the
different chemistry of the inks (dye-based versus pigmented). Furthermore, they need to work with
different paper types, as ink interaction with the paper depends on its chemistry. Thus, the colors
resulting from given CMYK values depend on the types of inks and papers that you use with a printer. If
this is the case using the same printer, you can easily imagine how different results can be obtained
with printers using different technologies and therefore using different ink chemistry.
The same happens with RGB-controlled devices. For example, imagine that two different monitors from
the same manufacturer have their white points at 9600 K and 6500 K, respectively. Their colors are
going to be different because they will be related to a different white point reference. The situation
varies even more among monitors from different manufacturers. To emulate the standard color
temperature of the graphic-arts industry, set the white point of your monitor to 5000 K (also called
D50).
NOTE: The white point is the brightest neutral color that a device can reproduce or that is present in
an image. The human visual system automatically adapts to the content of an image based on its white
point.
Different devices do not give access to the same color gamuts: some colors that can be shown on a
display cannot be matched in print, and vice versa. The following figure illustrates how the human eye
perceives a larger range of colors than a typical display or printer. It also shows that the color gamuts
in two different types of color-imaging devices do not match each other.
96 Chapter 7 Color management ENWW
Color management