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Basically color management allows for a complete controlled color reproduction through the entire imaging workflow.

In other words, the colors of your originals are maintained  over the entire process of manipulation with a high accuracy percentage.

There are two color management systems in SilverFast scan software, the one contained in SilverFast Ai and Ai Studio and the one found in SilverFast SE or SE Plus.

This first article is dedicated exclusively to explaining the color management system in SilverFast Ai and Ai Studio.

SilverFast Ai and SilverFast Ai Studio

This big versions of the scanning software SilverFast have a very complete color management system which allow for a completely controlled scans in terms of color.

To access the color management system in SilverFast please click the “options” button (under Mac select the general tab first):

Options button

In the options dialogue click the “CMS” tab

CMS tab

The CMS dialogue has three main sections

Color management system's sections

The first section “Color management” lets you define how SilverFast will communicate with your different devices and which color profiles will be used for that task.

Color management section

Input -> Internal menu specifies the color space system that will be used between your scanner and your program (either SilverFast or your post-processing applications). ColorSync for the Macintosh and ICM (image color matching) for windows.

The option none is also present in case you want to give up color accuracy between your scanner and the programs.

Input -> Monitor menu specifies the color space system that will be used between your program (SilverFast or editing application) and your computer monitor.
Again, ColorSync for Mac and ICM for Windows.

None if you want to pass data to your monitor without any matching

Automatic if  photoshop should take care of how colors are presented by your monitor. This option is active only when starting SilverFast from within photoshop.

Input -> Output menu specifies the color mode that will be used for the resulting file or image (either electronic or printed). This defines the type of data transferred either to your printer or to your imaging application (e.g. photoshop, corel draw, etc.)

there are four options here:

• RGB is recommended if the scanned images will be used for internet or other digital media like DVD’s, CD rom, etc.
• ColorSync/ICM should be selected if a printer color profile should be integrated to the resulting file or printed picture
• LAB CIE Lab represent all visible colors and is device or media independent, many colors contained within this color system can not be represented by normal computer monitors, most printers, paper, etc. This should be used by professionals and scientists who work and know how to interpret the values represented in this color space.
• P&P CMYK mode tells SilverFast to internally make the four color separation for printing. If you plan to make post processing in photoshop or any other external editor, you should make sure the same color space is active there, having different profiles ind both applications might lead to color discrepancies.

The second section “Profiles for ColorSync / Profiles for ICM” will be explained in the following article.