Colour Calibration is the process of ensuring the accurate reproduction of colour for images. Full colour calibration is usually a two-step process: calibrating your input device, such as a scanner; and calibrating your output device, such as a printer or monitor. By calibrating your input and output devices correctly, colour is captured accurately by your scanner and is reproduced faithfully on your monitor or printer.
To make sure your scanner captures colour accurately, Microtek developed DCR, or Dynamic Colour Rendition.
DCR is a colour calibration and correction system that compensates for the colour shifts that occur invariably in all scanners. Because each scanner has its own unique "colour signature," (one scanner sees red as "red" and another sees it as "magenta"), it makes sense to use DCR to ensure accurate reproduction of colour.
Without DCR, the only way to correct colour would be to do it in your image-editing software after scanning the image, and post-scanning colour correction can be a tedious and time-consuming process.
With DCR, colours are scanned accurately. This does not mean that the colours will be correct once you output them; you still need a colour management system to calibrate your output devices (monitor or printer). With DCR, however, you can eliminate the inaccuracies that come from the first round of the colour reproduction process (the input process), and DCR saves you time from having to do lengthy post-scanning colour correction.
DCR comes standard on the ScanMaker III and is available as an option for all other colour scanners.
For other scanners without DCR, a generic colour profile ships with the ScanWizard scanning software that lets you use automatic colour correction for achieving accurate scans. But to maintain colour accuracy over time, it is wise to use DCR to calibrate your scanner.
Microtek Europe B.V. phone: +31/(0)10/2425688 fax: +31/(0)10/2425699