New Windows Color System - what are the implications?

[matthias_leuenberger]

Anyone understands the implications of the below for color

management / Photoshop work? Is this also about introducing a

new/better color space?

 

"REDMOND, Wash. - Sept. 13, 2005 - Microsoft Corp. and Canon Inc.

today announced another major milestone resulting from the companies'

strategic alliance: a new color management system for the upcoming

Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. The new Windows Color

System will enable greater fidelity and predictability of color

throughout Microsoft's new operating system. The system will provide

better screen-to-print matching, better overall color appearance, and

support for higher fidelity printing, giving users new tools to take

advantage of the capabilities of today's powerful color devices such

as digital cameras and color printers.

...

Canon's Kyuanos supports extended color space, greater bit depth and

color appearance technology for a wide range of use. Based on this

next-generation color-management technology, Windows Color System

will provide a new color infrastructure and translation engine for

Windows Vista that compensates for the differences in color

performance that can occur between various input and output devices,

to achieve uniform color reproduction. The new system will support

higher-fidelity color with greater bit depths, multiple color

channels and alternative color spaces. The system will also provide

an improved user experience through a centralized color control panel

and easy-to-use monitor calibration wizard."

[david_williams10]

That's it. I finaly give up any hope of trying to master colour mangement.

 

Once Microsoft get their fingers in the pie there will be no helping us. At least at the moment they are a background influence and we can profile and convert to our hearts content as we know what's going on.

 

The prospect of trying to do this with some sort of Microsoft colour mangement working in the backgroud ---------------- ARRRRRRRRRGGGHHHH!

 

Hopefully it will have a nice big "OFF" button.

 

David

[eric_perlberg]

If you separate out the marketing speak from facts here you wind up with something like: Microsoft is changing from ICM (their current colour management system) to something new. Since most of us use Photoshop and use Adobe's built in colour management system and turn off ICM (if they work on windows) then this announcement has absolutely no effect.

 

It's probably meant to replace the current sRGB idea which Microsoft also came up with along with HP and a few others. The goal is to make it foolproof for the average user to produce reasonably accurate colour management without learning anything about what they're doing. This could potentially be useful for the point and shoot set who make snaps with their pocket cameras.

 

If you're a fool then foolproof systems are pretty important. If you know what you're doing or you can think for yourself, you won't have to deal with the news blurb mentioned above.

[andrew_rodney1]

-->If you separate out the marketing speak from facts

 

Amen. Seems like 90%+ was marketing speak. A lot of hot air.

[._._z]

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/color/WCS.mspx

[madwand]

Looks like the implications are going to be very wide and interesting.<p><p>

 

<i>"The Windows Color System architecture for Windows Vista includes the following improvements in functionality:<p>

Uses CIECAM02, a modern color appearance model designed to support a color management system, rather than CIELAB, a 30-year-old color difference equation"</i><p><p>

 

Some interesting illustrations appear here:<p>

 

<a href="http://scanline.ca/ciecam02/">http://scanline.ca/ciecam02/</a><p><p>

 

Percerptual effects make me dizzy. Perhaps Sartre was right after all when he said something like <i>"Modern thought has realized considerable progress by reducing the existent to the series of appearances that manifest it..."</i>

[eric_perlberg]

I read through the Details posted by .[. Z and can't say that I understood it all either

through my own ignorance or Microsofts' marketing boffins ability to obfuscate. Several

points:<br><br>

1) Perhaps indicative of points further, where any other software firm in the known

universe would have published this white paper as a pdf, Microsoft published it as a Word

Doc.<br><br>

2) The paper starts with a detailed marketing analysis defining a growing gaggle of users

which the writer(s) define as not really getting colour management and not wanting to

including some professionals who the writers thought would know better. <br><br>

3) They first say that they will fully support ICC definitions for profiles but then go on to

say that rather than adopt the ICC's virtual Profile Connection Space an abstract space

based on CIELAB which itself is based on physiological research and which is like the glue

that makes it possible for different devices to have a common colour space from which to

generate profiles, they've decided to adopt the CIECAM02 which Mad wand

mentions. I'm not sure what this means and maybe someone like Andy Rodney would

clarify this a bit but the way I take it is that VISTA colour management is messing with

industry wide standards and then throwing in a bunch of marketing terms like "modern

color appearance model" which doesn't in and of itself say much more than the letters

NEW in a red starburst on the packaging for Vista. What may truly be new is that

Microsoft is creating a second standard which everyone will have to cope with in some way

if only to help your friends when they get hopelessly lost if something isn't going

right<br><br>

4) Microsoft then go on to talk about how this new colour management module will have

additional APIs (hooks for programmers to take advantage of the core module) to their

sRGB core colour management model currently. So it might be that we're looking at ICM on

steroids with external hooks.<br><br>

5a) At least the way I interpret all of the above is that the new colour model involved in

VISTA will be non-standards compliant in order to make a seamless colour mangement

model for any imagineable device which may hook up to it but at the same time flexible

enough so that if you're a "high end user" it will switch back to ICC rules and act

ICCish.<br><br>

5b) It is designed to make it so that documents seamlessly colour mangage in such a way

that the operator doesn't have to know what they're doing. I would say this is the ultimate

Point and Shoot extension to the Point and Shoot philosophy of photography. Mark my

words, Microsoft will market it as Point Shoot Print and it will have a cool dude clicking his

cell phone camera and a sweet young coed doing graphic design, etc and all will be just so

pleased with the accuracy of the colour output.<br><br>

5c) The APIs are there to encourage all vendors to make hooks into the model so that their

products will work with it thus guarenteeing that they won't be closed out of the Microsoft

vortex.<br><br>

So from what I can see from my admittedly not perfect understanding of what they've

written, there is

nothing here about trying to improve the sophistication of profiles but simply to make the

process more invisible to the non-critical user.

<br><br>

As anyone using Photoshop already doesn't use ICM, the new VISTA colour manager won't

have any impact.<br><br>

As you can probably intuit, I'm not personally optimistic about this development. YMMV

[andrew_rodney1]

Having more features, intelligence (whatever you want to call it) in a CMS based on modern

color appearance models could be a very good thing. Alone, probably not compelling since

we have to see how the total package comes together. But moving past the current

limitations of ICC color management and introducing color appearance models could be big.

[eric_perlberg]

A few last words of clarification above. Matthias had asked if the announcement signalled a

new and better colour space. No, What's involved is a well defined connection system so that

any device can join in the sRGB merryment. It may be possible (but I'm still not sure) that the

system will be extensible to handle other existing colour spaces or new ones that anyone

may come up with as is the current ICC model.

<p>

Lastly, I said: <i>there is nothing here about trying to improve the sophistication of

profiles</I> but meant to say there is noting here to improve the sophistication of colour

management.

[eric_perlberg]

There are now several extensive discussions of the upcoming Windows Vista color

management module at the <a href="http://lists.apple.com/archives/colorsync-users/

2005"> Colorsync Users List</a> in the Sept archives. Look for the post titles: "Microsoft's

color-management claims" and "Goodbye ICC, here come Microsoft !" Reading through these

you'll get an idea that the colour managementt discussions here at photo.net are pretty basic

indeed.