An ICC profile is a file that describes how colors can be reproduced by a device. The file contains the color characteristics of a device, including brightness, the white point, the gamma curve, and the color gamut of a particular monitor, and describes the transformation between the device and the profile connection space (PCS). Put simply, every device that reproduces colors can be assigned a data set described by the ICC profile. The ICC profile defines the color characteristics reproduced by the device. The International Color Consortium (ICC) determined the architecture and format of the profile, hence the name. Today, two versions of profiles are widely used, namely the v2 and the v4. An ICC profile uses a tagged format, and consists of a header plus individual tags. Tags can be informational, numeric, required, or optional.