Before the mainstream success of the iPod and, later, the iPhone, Apple was well known for making computers geared towards professionals that wanted to do some serious work with a computer and not just play some games. As of today, you can still hear many people (including me) saying that if you want to really work, you have to buy. But this is not the main story.

It’s a fact that many graphic designers choose Mac OS X as their platform of choice, and especially after the release of Adobe’s CS5 suite (which is now 64-bit compatible) I can expect even more coming from Windows. But for graphic designers, when something has to be converted from digital to print it’s a real pain. Color don’t match, the whole product has to be adjusted and this means loss of time and money. This happens because monitors and printers use different color schemes: monitors use addictive colors (RGB) in which red, blue and green are combined to create what you see on screen, while printers use subtractive colors (CMYK) where light reflects off paper and, through various transparent inks and dyes, filters out color. You can get a quick overview here. As you can guess, graphic companies aren’t exactly happy with the problems they have to face when translating RGB to CMYK.

But, a new patent has come our way. Apple has indeed been granted a patent for “subtractive displays”, basically monitors that use complex adjustable filters to display CYMK instead of RGB. You can see the patent here.

This may lead to an important revolution in the relationship between Apple computers and graphic companies, which wouldn’t have to pay for additional costs in the translation process anymore. Also this would require new hardware, suggesting a possible implementation in future Macbooks. Bookmarked.