[CREATE] Color swatches

[Jon A. Cruz]

On Apr 7, 2008, at 3:50 PM, Olivier BERTEN wrote:

> It IS the case for all web development since (simple) RGB values  
> are transmitted over the web to people who, for most of them, use  
> no calibrated screen or printer. So colors look different in most  
> of the cases. It would be unfair to make people believe that since  
> the colors are defined in a color space that they will look the  
> same on other people's screens. It will be approximately the same,  
> not exactly as the presence of an icc profile could make people  
> believe. As far as I know, web color 'lightslategray' will be  
> #778899 even on a AdobeRGB calibrated screen.
>
> By the way, most of the users of Inkscape or Gimp aren't  
> professional and don't have (again) a calibrated screen and/or  
> printer so the colors won't be the same anyway even if there's a  
> icc profile attached.


In general the W3C disagrees with most of that, and says that the  
"sRGB" colorspace should be assumed as a best compromise.

In fact, sRGB is called "A Standard Default Color Space for the  
Internet"
http://www.w3.org/Graphics/Color/sRGB

"...HP and Microsoft propose an additional means of managing color  
that is optimized to meet the needs of most users without the  
overhead of carrying an ICC profile with the image: the addition to  
the OS and the Internet of support for a Standard Color Space. Since  
the image is in a known color space and the profile for that color  
space would ship with the OS and browser, this enables the end users  
to enjoy the benefits of color management without the overhead of  
larger files. While it may be argued that profiles could buy slightly  
higher color accuracy, we believe that the benefits of using a  
standard color space far out-weigh the drawbacks for a wide range of  
users. The migration of devices to natively support the standard  
color space will further enhance the speed and quality of the user  
experience..."

and Microsoft says
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/display/color/icmwp.mspx

"...In addition, both companies have worked with the World Wide Web  
Consortium (W3C) to ensure that sRGB is available to all vendors.  
sRGB has been the standard color space since HTML 3.2 and Cascading  
Style Sheets (CSS) 1.0, and it is freely available to any software or  
hardware vendor...."

They've also made sRGB the centerpiece of their OS and color support  
since Windows 98 and Windows 2000.


> Color spaces are needed only for the printing industry, not for web  
> and not for "normal" people. So the software should show a "print  
> quality label" for swatches (or colors) that have a profile  
> attached but it shouldn't be mandatory in the specification.


This I know from personal experience is untrue. Getting consistent  
color is very important for professional web people (designers,  
graphics creators, etc.) for video, for multimedia and for many other  
things. Even a good Adobe-only web workflow involves the use of  
various color profiles.


NEC also has info on this point:
http://www.nec-display-solutions.com/c/g/uk/en/Monitorizing/BGArticle/ 
Details/dp/Internet/Shared/Content/SeeMore/BGArticle/ 
sRGBBackgroundBasic/index,solutionId=.html

"...In the future, sRGB can make a decisive improvement in the  
possibilities for E-business and above all in the web auctions that  
are becoming ever more popular. This is where the biggest advantage  
of the new colour space lies. Even today, colour pictures on the web  
are just as important, if not more important, as the reproductions in  
printed catalogues...."

"...It is impossible to completely iron out all the colour  
differences between the various colour devices on the way from the  
supplier to the customer´s monitor at home. But they can be  
significantly reduced and thus displayed very realistically through  
the definition of an optimum colour space specific to these  
applications such as sRGB, which can also "understand" the different  
devices and process them uniformly."




There is a lot more information out there, from many different  
sources. However I figured info from the group in charge of web  
standards, the company making the vast majority of end-users' OS, and  
a company that is big in display hardware make up a good sampling to  
get an idea of the state of the market.
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