Tulostusväriavaruuteen

Tulostusväriavaruuteen, known in English as printing color space, refers to the specific range of colors that can be reproduced by a given printing device or process. Unlike screen-based color spaces like sRGB, which are designed for digital displays, printing color spaces must account for the limitations of physical pigments, inks, and the substrate (like paper) onto which they are applied.

The creation of a printing color space involves defining the boundaries of reproducible colors. This is often achieved by characterizing the output of a specific printer and ink combination, for example, using a spectrophotometer to measure a wide range of color patches. The resulting data is then used to build a color profile, typically in the International Color Consortium (ICC) format. These profiles describe how the device interprets and renders colors.

Common printing color spaces include CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key/Black) and its various implementations, such as SWOP, GRACoL, and FOGRA. These profiles are crucial for color management workflows, ensuring that colors appear consistent across different devices and media, from design to final print. When a design is created in one color space (e.g., RGB for a monitor) and intended for printing, it must be converted to the appropriate printing color space to achieve the desired outcome and avoid unexpected color shifts. The gamut, or the total range of colors, of a printing color space is generally smaller than that of display color spaces, particularly in bright, saturated hues.