The present invention provides method and apparatus for supporting a legacy application programming interface (API) set between a component and a color management system. The legacy API set supports both the new capabilities as well as the legacy capabilities. The color management system determines the format type for an object that is referenced by an API call. If the object is associated with a legacy format, the API call is processed by a legacy processing module. If the object is associated with an advanced format, the API call is processed by an advanced processing module. If a plurality of objects is associated with an API call with mixed formats, the color management system converts some of the objects so that the objects have a consistent format. A common structure supports an object that may have either a legacy format or an advanced format.