Patent ID: 7046393

Claim:
An open color management system allowing any of a plurality of input color devices to share data with any of a plurality of output color devices comprising: a networked connection space for input and output device communication; an input color profile for each input device; an output color profile for each output device; and an open color manager, which resides on a given input device, to link said given input device with a selected output device, including a configuration to parse an input color space data set comprising black channel data plus multiple color channel data with the input and output color profiles at a job time to create a profile connection space including transformed multiple color channels plus the input black channel data to provide an output color space data set comprising the input black channel data plus the transformed multiple color channels for imaging by said selected output device while substantially preserving the input black channel data; and wherein said input color profile is provided by a device selected from the group including: said given input device; and a remote database; and wherein said output color profile is provided by a device selected from the group including: said selected output device; and a remote database.