An Evaluation Method for the Visual Effects of Different Gamut Mapping Algorithms

Attempts to find an evaluation method for the comparison among visual effects of different gamut mapping algorithms in color image reproduction. The results of such comparison may be helpful in the selection of mapping algorithms. The gamut of a printer is taken as a source gamut and an assumed gamut which is smaller than the source one is taken as a reproduction gamut. Different mapping algorithms are applied to a picture composed of a number of color blocks to map the picture from said source gamut to the reproduction gamut. The printed mapped pictures are compared to the original picture and arranged in order in terms of the degree of visual similarity between the mapped and original pictures. Visual effects of mapping algorithms of "clip", "lin (linear) ", "knee" and "sigmoid" are compared with each other, and it is concluded that in most cases the "clip" is better than the others.