Note
Your monitor may have been factory-calibrated, but you may not know how precisely
and to what standard. For example, if your print shop recommends that your monitor use
the common prepress standard of a D65 white point, how do you know how well your
monitor meets that standard? To make sure, calibrate and profile your monitor with D65
set as the target standard.About calibration and profiling
Calibration means adjusting a device to meet a standard, like making sure a monitor displays
neutral gray when neutral gray color values are sent to it. A profile describes whether the
device meets a standard, and if not, how far off it is so that a color management system can
correct for the difference and show image colors accurately.
To get the most out of color management, calibrate and profile your monitor so that you
evaluate color on a screen using an accurate display profile. You can use calibration/profiling
software that drives a color profiling device. The software uses the device to measure the
colors produced by your screen, and corrects for inaccuracies by creating a customized ICC
display profile of your monitor. Your system uses this display profile to show colors
accurately in any software that is color-managed, such as Photoshop and most other Adobe
graphics software.
RGB color model
Much of the visible color spectrum can be represented by mixing red, green, and blue (RGB)
colored light in various proportions and intensities. Where the colors overlap, they create
cyan, magenta, yellow, and white.
Because the RGB colors combine to create white, they are also called additive colors. Adding
all colors together creates white—that is, all light is transmitted back to the eye. Additive
colors are used for lighting, video, and monitors. For example, an LCD monitor creates color
by emitting its backlight through red, green, and blue filters.
CMYK color model
The CMYK model is based on the light-absorbing quality of ink printed on paper. As white
light strikes translucent inks, part of the spectrum is absorbed, while other parts are reflected
back to your eyes.
In theory, pure cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) pigments should combine to absorb all
color and produce black. For this reason, these colors are called subtractive colors. But
because all printing inks contain some impurities, these three inks actually produce a muddy
brown, and must be combined with black (K) ink to produce a denser black. (K is used
instead of B to avoid confusion with blue.) Combining these inks to reproduce color is called
four-color process printing.