Color information is communicated using numbers. Because different devices use different methods to record and display color, the same numbers can be interpreted differently and appear to us as different colors. A color management system keeps track of all of these different ways of interpreting color and translates between them so that images can look the same regardless of the device used to display them.

In general, a color profile is a description of a device-specific color space in terms of the transformations required to convert its color information to a device-independent color space.

In the specific case of working within After Effects, ICC color profiles are used to convert to and from the working color space in the following general workflow:

1. An input color profile is used to convert each footage item from its color space into the working color space. A footage item may contain an embedded input color profile, or you can assign the input color profile in the Interpret Footage dialog box or interpretation rules file. (See Interpret a footage item by assigning an input color profile.)

2. After Effects performs all of its color operations in the working color space. You assign a working color space (project working space) in the Project Settings dialog box. (See Choose a working color space and enable color management.)

3. Colors are converted from the working color space to the color space of your computer monitor through the monitor profile. This conversion ensures that your composition will look identical on two different monitors, if the monitors have been properly profiled. This conversion does not change the data within the composition. You can choose whether to convert colors for your monitor using the View > Use Display Color Management menu command. (See Enable or disable display color management.)

4. Optionally, After Effects uses a simulation profile to show you on your computer monitor how the composition will look in its final output form on a different device. You control output simulation for each view through the View > Simulate Output menu. (See Simulate how colors will appear on a different output device.)

5. An output color profile for each output module is used to convert the rendered composition from the working color space to the color space of the output medium. You choose an output color profile in the Output Module Settings dialog box. (See Assign an output color profile.)

By default when you use color management, After Effects automatically adjusts colors to compensate for the differences in gamma between scene-referred color profiles and output-referred color profiles. (See Gamma and tone response.)

Color management provides many benefits, including the following:

• The colors in imported images appear as the creators of the images intended.

• You have more control over how colors are blended within your project, for everything from motion blur to anti-aliasing.

• The movies that you create will look as you intend when viewed on devices other than your computer monitor.

If you don’t enable color management for your project, then the colors in your composition are dependent on the color characteristics of your monitor: the colors that you see are the colors that your monitor displays based on RGB numbers in your footage items. Because different color spaces use the same RGB numbers to represent different colors, the colors that you see and composite may not be the colors that the creator of the footage intended. In fact, the colors may be very far from the intended colors. (See Color management and color profiles.)

By setting a working color space for the project (which enables color management), you do two things:

If a footage item has an embedded color profile (for example, the footage item is a Photoshop PSD file), then the colors intended by the person who created the image can be accurately reproduced in your composition. The color profile contains the information that determines how to convert the RGB numbers in the image file into a device-independent color space; the color profile of the monitor can then be used to determine which RGB numbers in the color space of your monitor represent the colors intended for the footage item. This automatic conversion becomes even more important as you import footage items with many different color profiles, from many different sources.

The color conversion process takes no effort on your part. The colors simply appear on your monitor just like they appeared when the image was created. Your monitor may have a limited gamut compared to the color space that you choose for the working space, and colors can be clipped when displayed on the monitor. However, you still have the full range of color data in your project, and the colors are not clipped internally.

When you are ready to output your composition, you can use color management to transform your colors into the space appropriate for your output media. At this stage, you are preserving the appearance of colors as you intend them to look.