Robin Myers, inventor of ColorSync, photographer and imaging guru. Now principal of Robin Myers Imaging and developer with Better Light, Inc., here he shares his thoughts about where we've been and where we're going, exclusively for Jeff Harmon of Colorhythm...
[10.24.2001]
Interview with Robin Myers: Part 1
Jeff: First of all, let's talk about the past. Not everyone knows the history of ColorSync, and it would be fascinating to hear some news of how it evolved from the person at the epicenter.
Robin: In 1988 I left Versatec, a Xerox company, to work for Gary Starkweather at Apple Computer. He was managing a printer development project and wanted to use color matching in the product. I developed a color matching algorithm and the basic code for it in my first month at Apple. The algorithm was gradually improved over the next year or two and shopped around Apple for inclusion in the operating system.
As it turns out, two different groups at Apple wanted to use color matching: the Peripheral Division and the QuickDraw GX group. The color matching algorithm I developed was turned into a system component and named ColorSync 1. By this time, a year or two after I started, Gerald Murch had been hired into the Peripherals Division and started to champion ColorSync to various parts of Apple, external developers and equipment manufacturers. Finally, in 1993 ColorSync 1 made it into an operating system release, 5 years after my first code was written. At about the time that ColorSync 1 was going into the system, Mike Stokes came aboard at Apple and started to work on the next generation of ColorSync. At that time a change was made from the algorithmic approach of ColorSync 1 to a table lookup method. This is when the ColorSync Consortium was started to get a broader acceptance of color management. The ColorSync Consortium was eventually renamed to the International Color Consortium, or ICC.
Jeff: We all know that ColorSync is a background application, a control panel that doesn't actually operate unless it's called on. Was there any discussion early on about making profiles an inherent part of image files, so ColorSync was always in use? We're seeing Adobe really spearhead an awareness of color management now, but what were the factors that went into play at that time in deciding to make it a more passive system?
Robin: When ColorSync 1 was being implemented into the operating system, there were two competing methods. The first, championed by the ColorSync Group in the Peripheral Division, was to make it an optional component, only used if an application program or peripheral driver explicitly called upon it. The QuickDraw GX Group had included the ColorSync color matching algorithm into the graphics engine, making it integral to the system. ColorSync was always on in GX and every graphical object had a profile attached. It always worked in the background and the colors were always correctly presented. Unfortunately, QuickDraw GX lost out in Apple internal politics and we are left with the passive method. So ColorSync is an optional feature that was ignored by almost all applications until Adobe pushed it to the forefront in Photoshop.
Jeff: Was there ever any talk about porting it to Windows?
Robin: I know it was debated, and I heard a rumor it was being worked on until Apple woke up and noticed that ColorSync is one of the few differentiating features between the Mac and PC systems. ColorSync is an enabling technology that is crucial for Apple's continued presence in the publishing and design industries. Putting it on a Windows platform would hurt Apple more than it would help.
Jeff: How do you view the evolution of ColorSync to the version in use today? What do you feel the strengths and shortcomings of ColorSync 2.0 and 3.0? I recognize it's hard to talk only about ColorSync without also addressing the evolution of the ICC specification and color management tools and software.
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