A SYSTEM FOR WYSIWYG COLOR COMMUNICATION

Despite the development of more powerful and cheaper colour imaging de vices, computer users often spend considerable effort creating colours on the screen only to find that when printed out later they appear to be a completely different shade. This is a problem which computer-aid ed design and colour management systems are only just beginning to add ress properly. More generally, if high colour fidelity is desired, the re is cause for concern whenever attempts are made to reproduce the sa me colour across any different media. In the past, such problems have tended to be overcome by elaborate, tedious, iterative and usually man ual matching processes. With rapid response times becoming increasingl y important, the ability to communicate colour both quickly and accura tely is highly desirable. This paper follows on from an earlier one in this journal which described a prototype system which was used succes sfully to demonstrate the feasibility of accurate colour fidelity and communication. The system, Colour-Talk, has since been further refined and the most recent developments are discussed here. This system illu strates a new way of communicating colour using the techniques of devi ce independency and colour appearance modelling, both of which are ess ential to achieving WYSIWYG colour.