Color Management System for Consistent Multi-Device Printing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for ensuring color consistency across multiple output devices, such as printers and display devices, fail to guarantee consistent color reproduction for colors outside the common gamut of all devices, leading to inconsistencies in saturated colors and image quality, especially when new devices are introduced or old ones are removed.
Innovation Solution
A method that identifies the group of devices for a job, obtains their color characteristics, modifies the job to map colors to a common gamut intersection, and selects the best devices based on specific metrics like gamut volume, similarity, and mismatch, ensuring color consistency without sacrificing image quality or requiring universal consistent-mode updates.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If independent color correction profiles are used for each output device, then device-specific color accuracy is improved, but color consistency across multiple devices deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary color space transformation process that mediates between device-specific color profiles and common gamut requirements. Colors are transformed through device-independent color spaces (CIELAB, CIELUV) as intermediaries, allowing each device to maintain its color accuracy while achieving consistency across the device fleet through controlled transformations to and from the common gamut.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically changes color space parameters by selecting different transformation methods based on the specific device combination and job requirements. It adjusts between device-specific profile transformations and common gamut transformations, modifying color parameters adaptively to resolve the contradiction between device accuracy and cross-device consistency.
2Stability of the object's composition
If colors are restricted to the common gamut of all devices, then color consistency across devices is improved, but image quality deteriorates due to loss of saturated colors
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the color transformation process into distinct stages: (1) transformation to device-independent color space, (2) identification of common gamut boundaries, (3) selective clipping of out-of-gamut colors, and (4) device-specific transformation. This segmentation allows the system to preserve in-gamut colors with full quality while only restricting out-of-gamut colors, thereby maintaining image quality where possible while achieving consistency.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies different quality levels locally across the color spectrum. Colors within the common gamut are transformed with full device-specific quality and saturation, while only colors outside the common gamut are subject to clipping or compression. This local differentiation preserves image quality for the majority of colors while ensuring consistency for problematic saturated colors.
3Stability of the object's composition
If a universal consistent color mode is implemented across all devices, then color consistency is improved, but device complexity increases due to required updates whenever devices are added or removed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic color management system where the common gamut and transformation parameters are recalculated on-demand based on the actual set of output devices assigned to a job. Rather than maintaining a fixed universal profile, the system adapts the color transformation parameters dynamically to the current device configuration, eliminating the need for system-wide updates when devices are added or removed.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary calculation of the common gamut and optimal transformation parameters specific to each job's target devices. By pre-computing device-specific color characteristics and common gamut intersections for the actual device set, the system avoids the need for universal pre-configurations and updates, reducing maintenance complexity while ensuring consistency.
4Adaptability or versatility
If device-independent color mapping is used, then portability across devices is improved, but color gamut coverage deteriorates for colors outside the common intersection gamut
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses device-independent color spaces (CIELAB, CIELUV) as intermediary representations that maintain portability while enabling gamut analysis. The system transforms colors to these intermediary spaces, identifies common gamut boundaries across devices, then performs selective transformations back to device-specific spaces. This intermediary approach preserves portability for in-gamut colors while enabling recovery of out-of-gamut colors through device-specific transformations where possible.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for maintaining color consistency in an environment of networked devices is disclosed. The method involves identifying a group of devices to which a job is intended to be rendered; obtaining color characteristics from devices in the identified group; modifying the job based on the obtained color characteristics; and rendering the job on one or more of the devices. Modifications are computed by a transform determined by using the color characteristics of the output devices along with the content of the job itself. The method further maps colors in the original job to the output devices' common gamut, i.e., intersection of the gamuts of the individual printers wherein the color gamut of each device is obtained from a device characterization profile either by retrieving the gamut tag or by derivation using the characterization data in the profile.