Patent ID: 6977661

Claim:
A computer-readable medium having computer-executable components for acquiring color images using an image-capturing device for use by an application, comprising: a color management component of an operating system having color management functions for performing color management operations; an image acquisition interface for calling by the application to set image acquisition control parameters in an image acquisition control data structure, said image acquisition control parameters including a color management parameter indicating whether color management is required; a device driver for the image-capturing device, the device driver controlling the image-capturing device to start an image-capturing operation according to the image acquisition control parameters in response to a data acquisition request by the application, receiving color image data for a captured image from the image-capturing device, and invoking a color management function of the color management component to operate on the color image data of the captured image when the color management parameter is set to indicate that color management is required; a color management application programming interface for calling by the device driver to invoke color management functions of the color management component; and an image acquisition service module operating between the image-processing application and the device driver to deliver requests by the application to the device driver and forwarding color image data from the device driver to the application.