Patent ID: 6873434

Claim:
A method for managing color data to transform CMYK source color data from a source device into CMYK destination color data for rendering by a destination device, the CMYK source color data and the CMYK destination color data being comprised of pixels represented by cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y) and black (K) values, said method comprising the steps of: determining, for each pixel of the CMYK source color data, whether the pixel has a non-zero C, M or Y value; setting, in a case that a pixel is determined not to have a non-zero C, M or Y value, the CMYK source color data corresponding to the pixel into the CMYK destination color data; transforming, in a case that a pixel is determined to have a non-zero C, M or Y value, the CMYK source color data corresponding to the pixel from a source device color space into CMYK destination color data in a destination device color space, and accessing a source color profile containing a source color transform and a destination color profile containing a destination color transform, wherein the source color transform and the destination color transform are used in the transforming step to transform the CMYK source color data into the CMYK destination color data; wherein, in the transforming step, the source color transform is applied to the CMYK source color data corresponding to the pixel to generate device-independent color data in a device-independent color space, and the destination color transform is applied to the device-independent color data to generate the CMYK destination color data in the destination device color space.