iCalamus 2 > Reference > Inspectors > Color inspector Index

Edit color

Existing colors can be edited. Double click on the relevant list entry and you will see the following dialog:

Here you can rename the color, even by using its current color values. You can also label it, e.g. to group certain colors. The label color of a color will be shown in the Color inspector color list afterwards.

Color Model

You can assign a color to a certain color model. iCalamus supports the following color models:

CMYK

This is the color model of your choice whenever you want to create documents for offset printing and want to use pre-separated colors. CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key (CMYK is often pronounced Smike). The color values in the CMYK color model usually have 8 bits of color information per color channel, which means 32 bits per color dot in an image.

RGB

The RGB color model offers unseparated colors and is the main color model in the world of computers. Almost all color input devices (like scanners and digital cameras) as well as monitors use this color model. RGB stands for Red, Green, Blue. The color values in the RGB color model usually have 8 bits of color information per color channel, which means up to 24 bits per dot in an image, or 16.7 million color choices.

Gray

The Graytone color model only uses 8 bits of color information (or 256 gray tones) per dot in an image.

Color Space

Here you can select a color space which then will be used for mapping the color model to a certain device or system. A color model without any associated color space is a more or less arbitrary, theoretical color system without any relation to reality. In reality, you will not always be able to reproduce all given colors of a color model. Therefore, pre-defined color spaces help adjusting or calibrating your color model for a target purpose. The available color spaces depend on your chosen color model.

Hint: There are at least two types of color spaces available for all offered color models, which need more information:

Generic

Creates a device-independent color space that represents colors relative to a reference white point. This white point is based on the whitest light that can be generated by the output device. Colors in a device-independent color space should appear the same when displayed on different devices, to the extent that the capabilities of the device allow.

If you e.g. need to output your defined CMYK color values in a way that it should look the same on almost any device, choose Generic CMYK.

Device

Colors in a device-dependent color space are not transformed or otherwise modified when displayed on an output device – that is, there is no attempt to maintain the visual appearance of a color. As a consequence, colors in a device color space often appear different when displayed on different output devices. For this reason, device color spaces are not recommended when color preservation is important.

If you e.g. need to output your defined CMYK color values unchanged for any reason, choose Device Dependent CMYK. This should be your choice when you e.g. export your document to PDF in order to send it to your print service which uses a calibrated workflow.

Web colors

The small # field below the color sliders shows the web color value of the current color. Web colors are used to represent colors in HTML pages in the web. Web colors are basically defined in RGB and are written in hexadecimal format, using number values from 0 to F (F = 15). #000000 here means R0 G0 B0 (Black), #FFFFFF means R255 G255 B255 (White).

To get more detailed information about web colors, see, for example, Wikipedia.

Hint: Please keep in mind that web colors are always RGB, even if you have chosen the CMYK color model for the current color. If you e.g. create new colors using web color values, but choose the CMYK color model, the color results may differ from what you expected.