Windows Color System (WCS) is a platform for
color management, first included with
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...
, that aims to achieve color consistency across various software and hardware, including cameras, monitors, printers and scanners.
System
Different devices interpret the same colors differently, according to their software and hardware configurations. As a result, they must be properly calibrated to reproduce colors consistently across different devices. WCS aims to make this process of
color calibration automatic and transparent, as an evolution of
ICC profiles.
Windows Color System features a ''Color Infrastructure and Translation Engine'' (CITE) at its core. It is backed up by a color processing pipeline that supports bit-depths more than 32 bits per pixel, multiple color channels (more than three), alternative
color spaces and
high dynamic range
High dynamic range (HDR), also known as wide dynamic range, extended dynamic range, or expanded dynamic range, is a signal with a higher dynamic range than usual.
The term is often used in discussing the dynamic ranges of images, videos, audio o ...
coloring, using a technology named ''Kyuanos'' developed by
Canon. The color processing pipeline allows device developers to add their own
gamut mapping algorithm into the pipeline to customize the color response of the device. The new pipeline also supports floating point calculations to minimize
round-off errors, which are inherent in integer processing. Once the color pipeline finishes processing the colors, the CITE engine applies a
color translation according to a color profile, specific to a device to ensure the output color matches to what is expected.
WCS features explicit support for LCD as well as CRT monitors, projectors, printers, and other imaging devices and provides customized support for each. WCS uses color profiles according to
CIECAM02
In colorimetry, CIECAM02 is the color appearance model published in 2002 by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) Technical Committee 8-01 (''Color Appearance Modelling for Color Management Systems'') and the successor of Color appe ...
, defined using
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
, to define how the color representation actually translates to a visible color.
ICC V4 color profiles are also supported.
Windows Photo Gallery and Photo Viewer only support the deprecated V2 standard and show dark images when used with V4 profiles;
Windows Imaging Component, the
HD Photo format,
XPS print path and XPS documents all support color management.
WCS is a superset of Image Color Management (ICM), which was first included with
Windows 95,
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...
,
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...
,
Windows Me
Windows Me (Millennium Edition) is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the successor to Windows 98, and was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000, and t ...
,
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...
, and
Windows Server 2003
Windows Server 2003, codenamed "Whistler Server", is the sixth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft and the first server version to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It is part of the Windows NT ...
.
See also
*
Features new to Windows Vista
*
Windows Vista printing technologies
References
External links
*
{{Microsoft APIs
Windows Vista
Color