Windows Color System: The Next Generation Color Management System
White Paper
Published: September 2005
For the latest information, visit http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/color/default.mspx
Abstract
This white paper provides an introduction to the Microsoft® Windows® Color System (WCS)—the color management system in the Microsoft Windows VistaTM operating system. The information provided in this white paper is for independent software vendors (ISVs), independent hardware vendors (IHVs), developers, and decision makers to help them understand how WCS can benefit their products and customers.
Contents
Introduction 1
Market Opportunities for the Windows Color System 2
More than one market for color use 2
Broad customer base for high-quality color 3
Inconsistency in current color management solutions 3
Benefits of the Windows Color System 6
New foundation for color management 7
Seamless integration and scalable support 7
Simple measurement-based profiles and workflows 8
Unparalleled extensibility framework 8
Improved Functionality in Windows Color System Architecture 9
Revamped color infrastructure and translation engine (CITE) 10
Enhanced color processing pipeline 12
New print infrastructure 12
Centralized user control 12
Conclusion 13
This is a preliminary document and may be changed substantially prior to final commercial release of the software described herein.
The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, the information presented herein should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.
This white paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.
Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.
Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document. Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property.
Unless otherwise noted, the example companies, organizations, products, domain names, e-mail addresses, logos, people, places, and events depicted herein are fictitious, and no association with any real company, organization, product, domain name, e-mail address, logo, person, place, or event is intended or should be inferred.
© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Microsoft, the Microsoft logo, the Windows logo, Windows, and Windows Vista are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
Introduction
The Microsoft® Windows VistaTM operating system provides a new development platform for advanced color applications and devices called the Microsoft Windows® Color System (WCS). Windows Color System offers a strong foundation for ongoing innovation in color into the future. Other platform enhancements, such as the display and print infrastructure, will be delivered simultaneously. This combination will nurture a strong ecosystem in which all participants can innovate together. The WCS solution provides direct, short-term benefits as well as a path for end users toward the ultimate solution in color that just works.
Many color management solutions have been introduced over the past 15 years with the promise to deliver the next panacea for obtaining color consistency across different software applications and imaging devices. However, none of today’s solutions and standards have been successful in satisfying the needs of the vast majority of new and existing color users. Even worse, customers have grown weary of promises to “fix color management once and for all.” Unrealistic expectations combined with a lack of sustained investment have proven to be a nonproductive mix.
The Windows Color System (WCS) is a solid first step toward the goal of transparent, consistent, and predictable color across different software applications, imaging devices, imaging media, and viewing conditions. WCS introduces an innovative, forward-looking, technically superior color management solution and showcases the first stage of a long-term sustained effort.
Microsoft, in its commitment to solving color problems, has partnered with Canon, a leader in color engineering and color science. Together, they have developed a new Windows Color System architecture that provides solutions unattainable by previous color management solutions.
Market Opportunities for the Windows Color System
In recent years, there has been an exponential growth in the demand for high-quality color imaging fueled by: Rapid growth in the digital camera market, the consumer and enterprise color printer market, the development of short-run color reproduction departments within enterprises, and the emergence of high-end imaging. This demand has been met by inconsistent color solutions that are considered inadequate by today’s standards. As the demand for high-quality color continues to grow, Microsoft offers new technologies and innovative solutions.
More than one market for color use
Several markets demonstrate increased use of color content and increased demand for a new way to handle color management.
Dramatic growth in the digital camera market
Digital cameras are the fastest growing consumer electronic device category in history, exceeding the record set by the overwhelmingly fast adoption of DVD players across the globe. This has far-reaching consequences for PCs, the main device to connect and interact with the camera and most often the main hub for further processing after pictures are taken. As users download their pictures for further viewing, editing, and printing, obtaining accurate and precise colors is a major concern.
Proliferation of consumer color printers
The consumer color printer market is driven by insatiable demand for inkjet all-in-one devices and photo printers. Digital camera sales remain strong, fueling sales of photo printers of all types.
Proliferation of office workgroup color printers
Color has invaded enterprise printing. Mid-size and large companies are upgrading their printers to color printers. A low average selling price for color printers has increased their attractiveness to small and mid-size businesses as well. Many aggressively priced color products contribute to the growth in the color technology segment.
The global office copier market is also fully primed for color-capable devices. Hardware vendors and their channel partners generate user interest in color copying by educating users about the affordability of color-capable devices and about the value color can add to business documents. This momentum is increased by the prevalence of multifunction devices (that is, individual machines that can copy and print cost effectively in both monochrome and color). Large numbers of organizations are consolidating their copiers and printers.
Enterprise in-sourcing of short-run color print jobs
The production market has developed a growing demand for color as pages migrate from Web presses into short-run, centralized reproduction departments. Light production devices are gaining a presence in businesses where they enable users to produce pages in color while controlling costs.
High-End imaging
In addition to trends in home and enterprise imaging, new opportunities are being created from the emergence of high dynamic range (HDR) and large gamut color devices as well as from the adoption of camera raw imaging workflows by professional digital photographers. These influences and change agents define key technology trends that have become mainstream over time.
Broad customer base for high-quality color
Devices with color capability and color accuracy are no longer a concern exclusively reserved for service bureaus, prepress houses, and offset press operators. Microsoft partners have made it clear that swift adoption of color in the office and explosive growth of color in the home have brought us well past the demands and expectations associated with the first wave of color devices. Support statistics confirm that color quality and color management levels judged acceptable or good enough as recently as two years ago are considered inadequate by today’s standards.
For example, small companies are often unable to obtain a good color match when trying to print color-critical documents (such as corporate letterhead) on their color printers. If they succeed and want to do a longer print run at their neighborhood print shop, they experience problems with the current color solutions when moving from an RGB device to a CMYK device.
Digital photography enthusiasts have less stringent requirements than color professionals for whom meeting color quality expectations is part of their contractual obligation. Nevertheless, enthusiasts also demand high-quality color and consistency across a variety of devices. Knowledge workers and home users collect, process, and present digital color content for work and leisure. Their requirements range from a good appearance match between two devices to consistent color across a variety of devices.
Inconsistency in current color management solutions
Color is a result of interactions between light sources, physical objects, and the human visual system. The color management challenge begins with modeling the complex and variable nature of these physical and psychological effects. Reproducing color in the digital domain poses additional challenges. In today’s open computing environment, constraints are imposed by differing capabilities and closed-source technologies in devices, device drivers, applications, operating systems, and networks.
Given the currently available tools, matching colors across devices and workflows is not an easy task. Current color management solutions tend to be difficult to use because operating systems, applications, and device drivers often implement color management in proprietary, inconsistent, and conflicting ways. In an attempt to guide the user through the imaging chaos, applications present the user with complex and confusing color configuration user interfaces that rarely produce consistent results.
Troubleshooting color problems is complicated and obscure for even the most knowledgeable expert users. Device calibration is often slow and difficult. Practically, this means that a significant amount of color expertise is required to produce the most basic results. Because most end users can't precisely articulate their needs, there is a lack of understanding of what is required at the architectural (or technical) level to reproduce consistent color results on a day-to-day basis. In addition, because even advanced users have difficulty troubleshooting color problems, there is a lack of support infrastructure and resistance to the adoption of new procedures and practices.
Despite the extraordinarily rapid growth of color applications, high-quality color is still a relatively new mass-market phenomenon. In the technology adoption life cycle, we have just entered the early majority phase (that is, the phase following closely after the early adopters phase). As more and more users rely on the new technology, and as vendors continue to flood the market with higher quality color devices, expectations and aspirations will continue to rise.
Color used to be the domain of experts. However, even graphic arts experts, found mostly in advertising agencies, service bureaus, and print shops, weren’t always as educated and savvy about color science as most people thought. Amazingly, many color adjustments were made by prepress operators and pressmen who learned how to fine-tune colors empirically as opposed to relying on a well-rounded systemic approach. As color moves into mainstream use, the same pattern seems to repeat. Many people assume that color mismatches between the screen and different printers are just part of a technology limitation, and they try to work around it, often blaming themselves in frustration. The average user still assumes that if the colors are incorrect, it's because of something he or she did wrong.
International Color Consortium (ICC): Setting consistency standards
The quest for consistent color is not a new phenomenon. But, until color proliferated in the consumer electronics market, it was a problem mostly for people in high-end printing and publishing industries.
In 1993, eight industry vendors (including Microsoft) established the International Color Consortium (ICC) for “the purpose of creating, promoting, and encouraging the standardization and evolution of an open, vendor-neutral, cross-platform color management system architecture and components." The outcome of this cooperation was the development of the ICC profile specification.
The intent of the ICC profile specification was to provide a cross-platform device profile format that could be used to translate color data created on one device into the native color space of another device. The idea: Acceptance of this specification by operating system vendors would enable end users to transparently move profiles and images with embedded profiles among different operating systems and applications, and enable device manufacturers to create a single profile for multiple operating systems.
The ICC initiative attracted a lot of attention throughout the graphic arts industry and dominated many conference sessions during major graphic arts events, seminars, and trade shows. Initially, many good things came out of the initiative and good advancements were made. Apple, one of the founding members of the ICC, endorsed the new ICC standard in its Colorsync implementation. Because Apple dominated the market for graphic arts applications at that time, ICC became the de-facto standard. Microsoft followed with image color management (ICM) and later with ICM2.
The ICC standard has continued to evolve, but even the latest version 4 update did not address some of the flaws and shortcomings identified during years of practical implementations. In general, developers don’t want to become color scientists. They simply want color issues to be solved for them. In this regard, the ICC has failed to reach its full potential.
Systemic problems with ICC-based color management solutions
There is a broad misconception that an ICC-based solution can, at least theoretically, match its claims. This belief ignores some of the systemic problems associated with ICC-based color management solutions that have been left unaddressed for too long.
In the past, the ICC has made valuable contributions to advancing the color cause. ICC working groups published a list of architectural limitations over seven years ago and proposed architectural solutions to address these issues. WCS has adopted a number of these proposals, including use of the latest CIE color appearance model (CAM) recommendations (now CIECAM02), measurement-based profiles, modular separation of devices, color appearance, and gamut mapping modules among others.
Microsoft will continue to support and enhance its existing ICC-based infrastructure and maintain compatibility with current and future advances of the ICC profile specification. At the same time, Microsoft is committed to providing the new and innovative solutions that it’s broad customer base demands and deserves. Windows Vista and Windows Color System are just two examples of this.