Message
Re: [colorvision_group] Win vs Mac - OS Color Management
2006-03-23 by CDTobie@aol.com
In a message dated 3/23/06 12:14:39 PM, ttrostel@... writes:
Ok .... I don't have a Mac ... I admit it. Sounds like going to an AA
meeting doesn't it?
This is a basic question. Does the Macintosh platform (OS-X) apply
profile level color corrections to all programs using a display by
default?
The OS does not control the color of pixels in an application window. If an application does not choose to manage color, than the only thing an OS developer could do is set standards that demand it, and include checks that refuse to run non-color managed applications. Users would scream and cry if that happened, as there are plenty of apps that aren't color oriented, which would be broken by this.
So OS X makes color management available to all apps, if they choose to follow the guidelines, and use it. Many of Apples own apps, even simple free ones, are color managed, and many lower cost and shareware apps on the Mac are color managed. So while not universal, its a somewhat better situation than Windows, where only the most serious of graphics and photo apps are color managed.
It certainly isnt the case with Windows which became obvious
to me yesterday.
Correct... Microsoft's own applications, like Work, Excel, and PowerPoint don't have color management. Most ironic is that Internet Explorer is color managed on the Mac (typical of Mac browsers) but NOT on Windows! Microsoft is making a big color management push with Vista, due in 2007, under the name of Window Color System. This is an (unfortunately) proprietary, non-standards based color system whose merits and extremely complex details can be discussed later (they'll have to be, as they haven't all been invented yet). But one interesting feature of WCS is that (after kicking and screaming from the color community) it promises compatibility with ICC color management, and fixes for a few of the current ICM2 color bugs on Windows.
It also, by making such a hullaballo about color management, may actually get Microsoft's own application divisions to get their acts together, and incorporate color management into the Office applications. That would be great, on the Mac as well as Windows! And a color managed Windows browser would only make sense as well.
Seems like something they ought to do ... maybe nobody got that far yet.
Its making progress; the Mac progress has been incremental and continuous, now including many graphics, photo, video and browser applications. The Windows progress (not atypically) comes in big, messy leaps instead.
C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision, Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com