What is a color profile?

The RGB color value consists of three digits. The first value is for the red portion (R), the second for the green portion (G), and the third for the blue portion (B). Thus 255-255-255 yield the color "pure white" and 0-0-0 the color "pure black". Everyone who has dealt with an image processing software has already selected a color.

Relatively speaking, the ratios in a pixel file are clear: an RGB value is assigned to each image point, higher values ​​correspond to a higher brightness of the corresponding color component. What does "pure white" mean? The RGB value only determines the relative ratios in a file. Which real color value with 255-127-0 is actually meant is an additional information, which can be stored in a so-called "color profile".

A color profile is a table which assigns the standard color values ​​of a standard color space to RGB values, for example L*A*B *, sRGB or AdobeRGB (1998). The combination of the RGB value and color profile thus provides the complete information about the actual color values, which can only be measured with relatively expensive special measuring devices, so-called spectrophotometers.

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