ICC-color Management tools claim to give both accurate and consistent results. However, using these tools of distinct manufacturers, different results are likely to occur even if the same parameters are given. Obviously the manufacturers do not focus on the same criteria doing their optimizations, which leads to the fact that each tool has its own strengths and weaknesses. In this study, new methods for comparing ColorManagement tools were evaluated, and with these methods, ICC profiles generated by five CM tools of current leaders on the market were investigated in order to point out their weaknesses and strengths. In addition, the influence of using various ColorMatchingModules (CMM) was tested. For the generation of each ICC profile, the same measurements (ISO 12642 equals ANSI IT8. 7/3 target of Iris InkjetPrinter) were used. Since the standardized ISO 12642 file format, in which the measurement data are stored, was not accepted by each of the tools, the data-file had to be converted to proprietary formats. The investigated quality aspects were accuracy, consistency and smoothness, with ΔEab2 and ΔE943 taken as the criteria. For each aspect, performance was visualized by mapping the ΔE values to pseudo colors, giving a very intuitive view on the investigated subject. Results showed that ColorManagement tools indeed achieved good color fidelity, especially if generated as large profiles.
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