An ICC device profile contains information that describes a device's color behavior. A profile contains separate lookup tables that may be used depending on how image data is to be rendered. An ICC device profile contains lookup table structures for perceptual, colorimetric, and saturation rendering intents. This paper describes how the onedimensional and multi-dimensional lookup tables within these structures can be systematically altered to create a “probe” output profile. When the probe profile is used in a color transform, wrong colors are deliberately produced, but in a systematic way, so that an investigator can visually check which color lookup table (rendering intent) within the profile is actually applied. Such a profile can be used as a workflow analysis tool and in evaluating profile quality where it is necessary to ensure that the system is using a specific lookup table.In printer-based workflows such as prepress proofing, a number of color conversions take place. The probe profile creates specific output colors and/or lightness levels, so that one can determine which rendering intent is used for rendering (when outputting to a device) and which is used for proofing (when simulating the colors produced by one device on another).Data is presented to show how a probe profile can be engineered and how it can be used to evaluate sequences of color transforms in commercial software applications. In particular the following applications are analyzed: –Adobe Photoshop, GretagMacbeth iQueue, and EFI's Best Designer Edition Color RIP.
Abhay Sharma, John Dalrymple, "Exploiting Pseudocolor in ICC Workflow Analysis" in Proc. IS&T 12th Color and Imaging Conf., 2004, pp 271 - 275, https://doi.org/10.2352/CIC.2004.12.1.art00048