Editor's Note: This is the second installment of a two-part piece on color management in photography.

Last week, we saw that color issues are more challenging in the digital world than exposure issues are. This week, we'll approach the issue of color management.

Without a physical reference, color becomes very slippery and hard to pin down and define. With film, people could and would hand around a physical reference, such as a slide or a test print. With digital, it's often bits and bytes all the way. But who says how bytes specify a color? Who sets the standard?

In order to get a guarantee of color consistency in electronic imaging, a who's who of companies in the imaging field has established the ICC (International Color Consortium). Its founding members are Adobe Systems, Agfa-Gevaert, Apple Computer, Eastman Kodak and Sun Microsystems. You can see their work in progress here.

The central feature of ICC color management is the "profile," which describes a device's behavior. But the profile of a device often depends not only on the device but also on being unique to each environment in which it is used.

A printer is always profiled together with a given ink set and paper stock; a display is usually profiled with respect to the color temperature of the ambient lighting in which it will be viewed; and a camera may need to be profiled specifically for a given lighting setup.

The ICC approach is open and systematic. It is also vendor-neutral, and every device is independent. It has been adopted as an industry standard, and most applications are now aware of ICC profiles.

Apple has integrated the ICC workflow into the Macintosh operating system under the name ColorSync; Microsoft calls its version Image Color Management; and Adobe Photoshop is extensively ICC-aware.

Carried by this all-star cast, the use of ICC profiles is poised to take the industry by storm.

Unfortunately, these are still the early days, and the ICC approach has a practical weakness, namely user calibration, also called profiling. Every device needs to be profiled independently by the user.

At present, calibration is still envisioned as an external process. Calibration is a task requiring that the user purchase specialized equipment—a spectrophotometer or colorimeter—and software. Furthermore, it is the user who must individually calibrate each of his or her devices—monitor, scanner, camera, printer—and ensure that they stay within calibration, and that the appropriate color profile conversions take place as imaging information flows from one device to the next.

Remember Julius, my art-repro photo hero of last week? He should have profiled his digital camera—but this is expensive, time-consuming and hard to do. He should have profiled his main computer monitor for color retouching accuracy. He should have set up a calibrated laptop for showing his work to artists and galleries. And he should have profiled a printer with his favorite paper to run off color-accurate sample prints for showing to the artist.

As a scientist, I like the idea of the user calibrating his devices and matching them to each other by software. Scientists love the idea of experimenting and measuring stuff, and they think everyone should share in the fun.

But as an engineer, I hate the idea that Julius User is required to measure stuff: Not only will he make his share of mistakes, but it's also clear that there will be conflicts between vendors' devices. And all of this profiling eats time—or requires a consultant on an expensive leash.

Furthermore, to add to my acid assessment of the joys technology brings us, let me remind you that devices drift! Today's monitor may affect a blue cast in a month. Tomorrow's inkjet paper batch may have come from a different subcontractor and a scanner may have an aging sensor preamplifier.

Next Page: A future of self-calibrating devices.

The geeks of this world would have us check the systems regularly, but I have news for them: A photographer checks his or her systems when they fail, which is always on deadline night, because that's when the images get a hard look. And due to the absence of built-in checks, it takes an experienced hand to locate the break in the chain of managed color.

So, let's liberate the user from all of this profiling! I wish for a new generation of equipment where every device will be self-calibrating. Hewlett-Packard must be thinking like me, because it has built calibration sensors into its Designjet proofing printers.

Read more here about HP's Designjet 90 series of printers.

I wish Nikon and Canon would profile their cameras at the factory. I wish monitor manufacturers would put sensors into their displays. I wish all printer makers would put sensors in their printers. I wish. Guess I'm an optimist. Enough wishing—let's look for the best available solution for today's beginners.

At present, manufacturers supply canned profiles that generically describe their devices. These are called "canned profiles" to distinguish them from custom-made, more accurate ones. The canned profiles can form the basis of an ICC workflow.

So, what would I recommend that a new user do to have a color-savvy workflow? I would say that some education comes first, along with a chart to check the color visually. Order that book and chart today!

The book I recommend to newbies is Photoshop Color Correction by Michael Kieran, published by Peachpit Press. It's well written and decently concise. You'll learn all of the practical stuff a photographer needs to deal with ICC color-managed workflows, as well as plenty of new Photoshop methods for retouching color. For geekier readers, a volume called Real-World Color Management by Bruce Fraser may bring enlightenment.

The Macbeth ColorChecker chart, which can be bought at any decent photo supply store, is universally used by digital-color folks to judge the color accuracy of digital imaging devices. For instance, for evaluating a monitor, you'll hold up the chart next to the image of the chart on the monitor; for a printer, you'll compare the chart with its printed reproduction.

An image of the chart is usually presented in any new camera review to illustrate the product's performance. And often, you'll have a model hold it for the first shot in a series. Trust me, if you want to play the game with the pros, you need an original ColorChecker (about $60).

Photoshop is evolving to meet new digital-imaging needs. Click here to find out more.

You'll still need a screen calibrator. But for the moment, the ColorChecker chart will help you to notice how bad your color workflow is and to realize what you're missing. That will doubtless motivate you to learn some more.

As an aside, have you noticed Eizo? It builds the best LCD monitors for professional imaging. Just shipping is its new flagship, the CG220 flat panel, which displays all of the Adobe RGB space. Unfortunately, this 23-inch dream screen lists at $5,000!

Yes, money talks: A monitor costing more than the computer painfully demonstrates the increasing importance of color accuracy in the new world of photography without film.

Edmund Ronald has a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, but he is currently on a sabbatical as a photographer in Paris.