According to the present invention, even if the coloring material use amount is limited but ambiguities remain and an accurate coloring material use limit is not known, then a virtual coloring material use limit is set artificially, the color measurement values of virtual patches in a region that exceeds the coloring material use limit are inferred by extrapolation and the color measurement values in the region exceeding the coloring material use limit are predicted by interpolation using the inferred color measurement values. Therefore, it is possible to predict colors in relation to any input exceeding the coloring material use limit.