Chapter 2
Calibrating Your SystemSometimes the colors of your original image do not match the colors you see on your screen and in the final printed output. This is because of the different color processes your scanner, monitor, and printer use to produce color.
The scanner and the monitor both create a range of colors by adding red, green, and blue (RGB) in different proportions and intensities (an additive color process). Printers, on the other hand, produce colors by combining cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K) inks (CMYK) to create the desired hues. This is a subtractive color process.
When you print a scanned image, the image goes through both the additive and subtractive interpretive processes to acquire colorthe first when it is scanned, and the second when it is printed on your color printer. As a result, the printed colors may not match the colors in the original.
Calibration allows you to
Calibrate your monitor to your scanner
Calibrate your printer to your scanner
Use the resulting calibration profiles when you scan an image.
Calibrating Your System