About Monitor Calibration And Characterization - Adobe PHOTOSHOP CS2 User Manual

printing" on page 261. For information on how to obtain custom profiles, see "Obtaining custom profiles for desktop
printers" on page 262.
Define the specific RGB or CMYK color space of a document. By assigning, or tagging, a
Document profiles
document with a profile, the application provides a definition of actual color appearances in the document. For
example, R=127, G=12, B=107 is just a set of numbers that different devices will display differently. But when tagged
with the AdobeRGB color space, these numbers specify an actual color or wavelength of light; in this case, a specific
color of purple.
When color management is on, Adobe applications automatically assign new documents a profile based on Working
Space options in the Color Settings dialog box. Documents without associated profiles are known as untagged and
contain only raw color numbers. When working with untagged documents, Adobe applications use the current
working space profile to display and edit colors. (See "About color working spaces" on page 268.)
To view the current document profile, select Document Color Profile in the status bar.
Managing color with profiles
A. Profiles describe the color spaces of the input device and the document.
identifies the document's actual colors.
the monitor's color space. D. Using the output device's profile, the color management system translates the document's numeric values to the
color values of the output device so the actual colors are printed.

About monitor calibration and characterization

Profiling software such as Adobe Gamma can both calibrate and characterize your monitor. Calibrating your monitor
brings it into compliance with a predefined standard; for example, adjusting your monitor so that it displays color
using the graphics arts standard white point color temperature of 5000 degrees Kelvin. Characterizing your monitor
simply creates a profile that describes how the monitor is currently reproducing color.
A
B
C
D
C. The monitor's profile tells the color management system how to translate the numeric values to
B. Using the profiles' descriptions, the color management system
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