Managing color on the desktop, from scanned image to the printed page

Abstract

Current desktop computing systems support color graphics as a matter of course, and many support 24-bit color at an affordable price. But as artists and other media producers have found, having a 24-bit color card and monitor is only the first step towards a useful digital imaging system. On a typical desktop computer, simply scanning an image and then printing it out will usually result in colors that are faded, muddy, or just plain wrong.